Sir John Franklin and His Crews

Report on the Franklin Disaster and Cannibalism — A key literary relic of the Franklin Search era

By John Rae ~ Charles Dickens

London by Bradbury & Evans, 1855. In Household Words. A Weekly Journal Conducted By Charles Dickens. First Edition, First Printing, Volume XI. 620pp. — complete. Rae’s report is in issue No. 254 dated September 1, 1854 on pages 12-20.

Modern dark green full Nigerian Goat with bright gilt title on spine. A beautiful copy: with marbled end pages, and no prior ownership markings; no torn pages, inner hinges strong and un-cracked — a very clean and complete copy containing a most important published document related to the Sir John Franklin search sage. Very Scarce.

The first public appearance of John Rae’s long letter to Governor George Simpson of the Hudson’s Bay Company, written at York Factory, Hudson Bay, 1st Sept. 1854. This letter, which appeared also, but later, in the Royal Geographical Society Journal (1855), brought the first news to the world that the Franklin expedition had met with disaster. Prior to this publication, Franklin’s fate was a complete mystery, Franklin’s wife was attending séances, and some people thought Franklin’s ships were a-sail on the Open Polar Sea. The editor, Charles Dickens, introduces it by saying “we do not feel justified in omitting or condensing any part of it; believing, as we do, that it is a very unsatisfactory document on which to found such strong conclusions as it takes for granted.” A key literary relic from the Franklin era of arctic exploration.