Little America.

London: G. P. Putnam's Sons,, 1930. Signed limited edition, number 746 of 1,000 copies printed on rag paper and signed by the author and publisher. Little America is Byrd's official narrative of his first aeronautical Antarctic expedition from 1928 to 1929. Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888-1957) graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1912. "In 1925 he commanded the naval unit of the D. B. MacMillan expedition to Greenland and became the first to fly across the Greenland ice cap. With the experience gained … Byrd prepared himself to become the first to take an aeroplane over the North Pole" (Howgego). His team reached King's Bay, Spitsbergen on 29 April 1926 only to find Amundsen and his team likewise preparing for a transpolar flight. When Amundsen's dirigible, the Norge, arrived at King's Bay on 7 May, tensions rose, though, it was Byrd's team that was the first to get their dirigible in the air. They returned triumphantly to New York a month later and Byrd, following Amundsen's advice, began preparing for another polar flight, this time over the South Pole. Setting out from Hoboken in August 1928, Byrd and his team travelled south and made for the Ross Ice Shelf, where they established base camp (known as "Little America"). After several preliminary reconnaissance missions, Byrd and his companions eventually reached the pole on 29 November 1929, and despite massive turbulence were able to circle for 11 minutes checking sextant readings. Another expedition in 1932 was likewise successful and "did much to stimulate official United States government interest in Antarctica, and in 1939 Byrd was back in the Antarctic at the head of one of most ambitious teams ever to work on the continent" (ibid.). Octavo. Original light brown half parchment, smooth spine gilt-lettered direct, blue paper boards and endpapers, top edge cut, others uncut. Etched portrait frontispiece of Byrd by Rebecca Lindon Taylor with captioned tissue guard, 55 half-tone plates, 4 maps (2 folding). Slightly rubbed, spine minimally darkened with minor chips at ends, minor glue residue to front endpapers, contents with minor toning, two marginal tears to prelims. A very good copy. Howgego IV B56-57; Taurus 114.