Festive Deal Cruise Of The Pandora. Collection [Nefob5VP]

Inscribed: “With A.Y.’s kind regards.” The first printed account of Pandora’s first voyage, this work includes some of the earliest Arctic photographs, and is of considerable rarity - especially in this condition.

Captain Allen Young, a merchant marine officer who had served previously under McClintock on the Fox, came from a wealthy brewing family. He financed the two Pandora voyages entirely from his own resources, and “his intention being to become the first to navigate the Northwest Passage. His ambition was not only to complete the voyage in a single season, but also to recover more information about the fate of the expedition of John Franklin” (Howgego). In this quest he was foiled, stopped by ice in the Franklin Channel. Nevertheless he was able to take despatches to Nares who commented “the officers and men of the Alert and Discovery can scarcely feel sufficiently grateful to Sir Allen Young and his companions for their determined and persevering efforts…”

As often, proprietor of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett sponsored the expedition. He was the same man who funded Henry Stanley’s search for Livingstone and, more pertinently here, George De Long’s Jeannette expedition a couple of years later.

Howgego III, Y2.