Beyond the Barrier with Byrd. An Authentic Story of the Byrd Antarctic Exploring Expedition.

1932. Chicago and New York, M.A Donohue & Company, 1932. 8vo. Original green cloth gilt, upper board lettered in gilt and blocked in blind with a ship, the spine lettered in gilt and blocked in blind with a penguin, remnant of pictorial dustwrapper with picture of Byrd on upper panel; pp. 253, [3 (blanks)]; photographic frontispiece and 15 photographic plates, full-page facsimile of a letter by Byrd; the cloth in fine condition, text evenly a little browned, as usual; provenance: signed on front fly-leaf 'Chas. Kessler / Byrd Expeditions / North & South' and 'Capt. A. Innes-Taylor / Sledman / 1928-30' and 'Best Wishes / Lt. Comdr. Tom Mulray' on a tipped-in paper slip; rubber-stamped 'Byrd's South Pole Ship / A Century of Progress / 1933'. First edition, first issue binding, a good association copy. 'Serving as the second mate aboard the Eleanor Bolling, Adams wrote this detailed account of Byrd's initial expedition, the first American experience of the Antarctic continent. Though an attractively produced volume, it remains the least popular of the seven accounts published by expedition members' (Taurus). Provenance: Captain Charles L. Kessler (born 1903) was the chief officer and navigator on the Byrd Antarctic Expedition. Alan Innes-Taylor (1900-1983) was a dog driver on Byrd's first Antarctic Expedition and chief of field operations on the second. During WWII he was instrumental in establishing weather stations across Greenland and the Northern Ice Cap, and commanded the Arctic Training Group, Echo Lake, in Colorado. A peak of the Queen Maud Mountains was named after him. The tipped-in manuscript note is by the chief engineer of the Byrd Antarctic Expedition and ground officer of Byrd's 1927 trans-Atlantic flight, Lieutenent Thomas B. Mulroy. Conrad p. 251; Spence 8; Taurus 117.