Sir Hubert Wilkins: Enigma of Exploration. Illustrated and with Maps.
first edition
1960 · London
by Grierson, John.
London: Robert Hale Limited, (1960). First Edition. Octavo, blue boards (hardcover), gilt letters, 224 pp. Bookplate; otherwise, Fine; in a Very Good, mylar protected dust jacket with lightly rubbed edges. From dust jacket: Sir Hubert Wilkins’ most publicised feat was his unsuccessful attempt to navigate a submarine called Nautilus under the North Pole in 1931. This was a glorious failure, and one of the few Wilkins’ expeditions well known to the world at large. For the Australian farmer’s boy, having stowed away in a ship at the age of twenty, proceeded to distinguish himself as a photographer, nautralist, meteorologist, geographer, aviator, war correspondent, pioneer of exploration, thinker and writer. All this he achieved with no more than a secondary school education. In the Turco-Bulgarian war, Wilkins the correspondent had one adventure after another. Then he left for three years in the Arctic with Stefansson, who described him as easily his best man. In the Great War he served with the official Australian historian, and was always in the fray, being wounded ine times and earning the M.C. with bar. After flying for two years in Alaska, Wilkins made a most outstanding flihgt across the Polar Basin from Alaska to Spitzbergen, for which he was knighted. Within five months, he had moved to Graham Land, the first man ever to fly in Antarctica. His life was indeed packed with adventure. The author, who has himself had a distinguished career in pioneer Arctic and Antacrctic aviation, has drawn on Wilkins’ private papers and received much help from his widow and friends. The result is an important contribution to the record of world exploration. (Inventory #: 60982bd)