Lot 2150: COLLINSON, RICHARD, SIR. 1811-1883.

Journal of H.M.S. Enterprise ... in Search of Sir John Franklin's Ships by Behring Strait. 1850-55. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1889. 8vo (213 x 132 mm). xi, [1], 531, [1] pp. Chromolithograph frontispiece; 6 folding maps; photogravure portrait. Original pebbled blue cloth, pictorially stamped in gilt, spine gilt-lettered. Minor spotting, repair to verso of 1 map, hinges weak, slight lean and slight darkening to spine. Provenance: Edward Tatham (armorial bookplate); few instances of neat pencil marginalia with scholarly comments; Guy Smith Barry (ownership inscription); Andrew Naylor (bookplate). FIRST EDITION, RARE. "In 1849 Collinson was appointed to command an expedition for the relief of Sir John Franklin, by way of the Bering Strait; he himself had command of the Enterprise, and with him was Commander Robert Le Mesurier McClure in the Investigator. The two ships sailed together from Plymouth on 20 January 1850 but unfortunately separated in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn and did not meet again. The Enterprise passed Point Barrow, Alaska, on 21 August, but the ice forced Collinson to return south and winter in Hong Kong. In 1851 he was again hampered by ice and in 1852 was frozen in at Cambridge Bay for the winter. In 1853 the Enterprise was caught in the ice at Camden Bay, and there passed a third winter. She reached Point Barrow on 8 August 1854, after being shut up in the Arctic, entirely on her own resources, for upwards of three years. Of the many who had searched for Franklin, Collinson came closest to the place where the expedition had ended. Collinson's addition to geographical knowledge on this Arctic trip was very considerable, and would have been tantamount to the discovery of the north-west passage, had this not been already actually achieved by the men of the Investigator" (DNB). AB 3351; TPL 3536.