IN NORTHERN MISTS: Arctic Exploration In Early Times

London: William Heinemann, 1911. 2 volumes. First Edition. Ann Savours Shirley's Copy, a copy with pleasing provenance.Ann Savours Shirley's Copy, a copy with pleasing provenance. Tipped-in color frontispiece in each volume, numerous illustrations in text. Royal 8vo, publisher’s original blue cloth lettered in gilt on spine, lettered and decorated in gilt on upper cover featuring a Northern sunrise. xi, 383; 416 including index pp. A handsome, well preserved and proper set, the text blocks sturdy and quite fresh, the cloth handsome and pleasing with a bit of expected age only, the gilt lettering and motifs to the covers bright, the black decorations clean and unblemished, a bit of mellowing to the spine panel lettering. A SCARCE AND IMPORTANT FIRST EDITION SET IN THE POLAR OEUVRE. THIS COPY WITH THE PREFERRED GILT DECORATIONS TO THE UPPER COVERS.
Nansen’s most significant biographer described him as the man who, "in the teeth of skepticism and discouragement harder to face, perhaps, than the Arctic ice-pack and the month-long night, [led] the way into the very heart of the polar fastnesses...in one stride enormously reduced the unconquered distance, and...demonstrated the justice of his theory...from [his initial] campaigns [he returned] never [losing] a Norwegian life." This significant explorer, pushed the limits of arctic exploration, despite the discouragement of his peers.
Although best known for his skills in arctic climates, Nansen was also a scholar in the history of the north. In these volumes he traces the history of arctic voyages from antiquity to 16th century exploration. “By tracing how ideas of the northern world, appearing first in a dim twilight, change for age to age, how the old myths and creations of the imagination are constantly recurring,sometimes in new shapes, and how new ones are added to them,we have curious insights into the workings of the human mind and its endeavor to subject to itself the world and the universe.” (preface)
Ann Margaret Savours Shirley was a British historian of polar exploration, covering both the Arctic and Antarctic. She was most widely known for her study of Robert Falcon Scott's ship HMS Discovery. Ms. Shirley was curator of manuscripts at the Scott Polar Institute at Cambridge University from 1954 to 1966. In 1970, she became an assistant keeper at the National Maritime Museum, where in 1973 she was appointed custodian of manuscripts. In 1977, she was placed in charge of the Arctic gallery.
She was a member of the Cambridge Spitsbergen Physiological Expedition in 1955 and the Australian National Antarctic Expedition in 1960. She was also an honorary research fellow at the Australian National University in 1960–61 and served as a member of council of the Royal Geographical Society in 1978–80. She was also a member of the council and a vice president of the Hakluyt Society and of the Society for Nautical Research.