The Log of the "Laura" in Polar Seas. A hunting cruise from Tromsö, Norway to Spitsbergen, the Polar ice off East Greenland and the island of Jan Mayen in the summer of 1906.

Cambridge: The University Press, 1907. First edition. Signed presentation copy with the tipped-in presentation leaf. . 28 cm; [8], 137 pp., with 28 photogravure plates, including the frontispiece; 4 photogravure illustrations in the text and double-page map. Presentation leaf inscribed to Dr. and Mrs. Edmund L. Gros. Original quarter polished green calf over green paper-covered boards, decorated with Nordic motifs and titled in gilt on spine and on upper board. Top edge gilt. Some wear to spine ends, edges and corners; joints reinforced. A very good copy.

Flush with family wealth (from Fleischmann's yeast, which transformed commercial and domestic baking), young Max Fleischmann and his wife took their honeymoon in Arctic seas aboard the "Laura." Max's sister Bettie, her husband Christian Holmes (who spoke Danish), and others joined the party. Bettie kept a journal of the expedition (they sailed to modern Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and into the Greenland sea), and published it (illustrated with her husband's excellent photos reproduced in photogravure) in this deluxe edition on luxury paper,to distribute to friends. This copy inscribed to Edmund Gros (1869-1942) and his wife. Gros was the founder of the American Hospital of Paris, the organizer of the World War One American Ambulance Field Service in France, and, ultimately, the organizer of the heroic "Lafayette Escadrille" of American volunteer fighter pilots who flew under French command. Bettie and Christian's descendent, Elizabeth Anne Holmes, gained fame as CEO of the failed Theranos blood testing concern. (Inventory #: 5954)