London: John Murray, 1825. Hardcover. First Edition of this engrossing account of Captain Lyon's explorations in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to find Repulse Bay. George Francis Lyon (1796 – 1832) was an English naval officer and explorer of Africa and the Arctic. While not having a particularly distinguished career, he is remembered for the entertaining journals he kept and for the pencil drawings he completed in the Arctic; this information was useful to later expeditions. This book offers an excellent example of such journals and illustrations. In 1824, he was given command of HMS Griper, a ship that had proved itself a poor Arctic vessel on William Edward Parry's 1819 expedition. His goal was to sail to Hudson Bay and then north through Roes Welcome Sound to Repulse Bay and then go overland through unknown country to reach John Franklin's furthest east at Point Turnagain on the Kent Peninsula. The Inuit had told Parry that there was salt water three days' walk to the west, but this was apparently the Gulf of Boothia. Hudson Bay was unusually ice-filled, and on 1 September 1824, near Cape Fullerton, just west of the entrance to Roes Welcome Sound, a storm drove the ship onto a rock or iceberg. All hands expected the ship to sink but when the gale died down it was still afloat. On 12 September, Griper was forced to anchor offshore in a gale with heavy seas and snow. It lost its anchor cables and the masts and rigging were badly damaged. Lyon took three weeks to work the hulk out of Hudson Bay. Arriving at Spithead without anchors the ship only stopped when it fouled a three-decker's mooring cables. Unsurprisingly, he never had another command of a ship [Wikipedia]. Bound in three quarter brown leather with brown and red marbled paper. Gilt titling and ship ornaments to spine compartments. Leather is rubbed and worn along spine and top and bottom edges. Top of spine is starting to split but still firm. Interior pages are generally very good. Some occasional foxing and some offsetting from the fold-out map and the seven plates. Book plate of Paul Warren affixed to front pastedown. There is a loose bookplate of William P. Sheffield that apparently had been attached to the free front endpaper as there is glue residue there. There is a small square at bottom of another free front endpaper with text erased. A very nice copy of this relatively scarce narrative of Lyon's voyage. Pages 1 - 144 text; Pages 147-198 appendix, which includes navigation information and a botanical appendix. TRAVEL/123120. Very Good.

Item #34762

Price: $525.00