Provenance: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s copy, inscribed to him by Campbell Mackellar “Sir Ernest Shackleton from C. D. Mackellar 1921”, and with a loosely inserted print of the Cabots’ departure from Bristol inscribed by Mackellar “May you find fortune C. D. M.”.
Arctic Bibliography 2344; Sabin 73366; Abbey Travel 637. This book is one of three works of the period
illustrating the searches for Sir John Franklin’s lost Arctic expedition. The fine lithographs were engraved
by Charles Haghe after Browne's originals, and depict scenes of Ross's search party and of the ice-scapes
through which they travelled - the Great Glacier and Fjord near Upernavik (West Greenland), a ravine in
the region of the winter quarters at Port Leopold, the cliffs at Whaler Point on Somerset Island, and
Leopold Island nearby. There are also views of ships locked in the pack-ice and of the sledges arriving at
the southern depôt. The text contains a brief account of the Franklin search expeditions in the central Canadian Arctic, notably that of Sir James C. Ross in 1848-9 with its wintering at Port Leopold and the work of its search party. This copy was presented to Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer, by one of his supporters, Campbell Mackellar, for whom Mount Mackellar in the Antarctic was named. At the time that he received the book, Shackleton was contemplating an expedition to the Canadian Arctic, but a lack of support from the Canadian authorities prompted him to decide to head south on the Quest for what proved to be his final expedition (he died aboard the Quest, off South Georgia, on January 5th, 1922).