8vo (209 x 138 mm). Frontispiece map. (Some spotting.) Contemporary brown buckram gilt-lettered on upper cover (light wear to spine ends). Provenance: Moberly Library (binding, shelfmark at foot of spine); collector's bookplate, a few pencil marks.

FIRST EDITION of this scarce earliest printed account of the British Arctic Expedition of 1875–1876, led by Nares, and sent by the British Admiralty to attempt to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound. The expedition explored the coasts of Greenland and Ellesmere Island, despite failing to reach the North Pole. "The failure of the Nares expedition effectively ended British polar exploration for the next 25 years" (Stam and Stam, Books on Ice). Not in Arctic Bibliography.