In Northern Mists

Arctic Exploration in Early Times

By Fridtjof Nansen

In Northern Mists. William Heinemann, London, 1911 First Edition, thick sm4to (10” x 7”) , 2 vols: Vol. I: (xi), 384 pp. Vol. II: 416 pp.; Index, Bibliography. Mounted color frontispieces with tissue guards and numerous illustrations (by Nansen) and maps throughout text. Publisher’s blue cloth boards with bright gilt lettering and cover image of Arctic scene. Exterior and interior are clean — a NEAR FINE set with no foxing, folds or tears, strong un-cracked hinges. Prior owners’ small book plate inside cover and stamp on ffe — otherwise a Near Fine copy.

— Arctic Bibliography 11993.

A well researched seminal study of early arctic exploration from Antiquity and into the 16th century. In Northern Mists provides a history of westward and northward exploration from the earliest known times to the period of the discovery of North America by John Cabot. Included are the exploits of Pytheas, the myths and history of the Norse Sagas, the story of Leiv Eriksson, and the romantic search for the Northeast and Northwest passages by Davis, Baffin and Hudson. This is a very well written book by Nansen as he applies his knowledge as a statesman and student of the history of exploration combined with his power as an accomplished polar explorer to a very heroic subject — the lifting of the mists and the forming of the outlines of the northern seas. This is an impressive set of books, not only in content but in unusually Near Fine condition. A translation of the author’s Nord i Taakeheimen (Kristiania, 1911).