McCORMICK, Robert (1800-1890). Voyages of Discovery in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas, and Round the World: Being the Personal Narratives of Attempts to Reach the North and South Poles; And of an Open-Boat Expedition up the Wellington Channel in Search of Sir John Franklin and Her Majesty's Ships "Erebus" and "Terror," in Her Majesty's Boat "Forlorn Hope." London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1884.

2 volumes, royal 8vo (248 x 161 mm). 66 plates including 5 color-printed maps (one folding) and 37 tinted lithographs (including 3 portrait frontispieces and 5 folding panoramas with two scenes each); 16pp. advertisements at rear of vol. II. (Slight toning, a few short marginal tears not affecting text.) Contemporary half red morocco gilt, marbled boards, top edges gilt, others uncut, stamp-signed by Stikeman & Co. for Charles Scribner's Sons (covers detached or detaching, light wear to extremities). Provenance: Collector's bookplates, a few pencil marks.

FIRST EDITION of McCormick's first-hand account of the Ross expedition (1839-1843), in which "he conveys the sense of awed wonder experienced by all aboard Ross' ships when the true enormity of the Antarctic continent revealed itself for the first time" (Taurus). He sailed with Captain Parry on his fourth voyage to the North Pole in 1827 aboard Hecla, and served under Ross from 1839-1843 on the Erebus and Terror expedition to the South Pole; he recounts both expeditions in the first volume. The second volume describes his voyage with Captain Sir Edward Belcher's 1852-54 on the last Admiralty search for Sir John Franklin and his ships Erebus and Terror (which had successfully carried Ross to the Antarctic ten years earlier). Arctic Bibliography 10582; Spence 747; Taurus 10.