A rare copy in such condition, complete with the map. Inscribed by Allen William Young, the captain, to Mrs Ball on the Pandora 25 May, 1876. This book is further distinguished by having belonged to Franklin Brooke-Hitching.
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.
This work is much rarer that Young’s own account of the voyage.
Arctic Bibliography, 10044.
