Muir, John (1838-1914)

THE CRUISE OF THE CORWIN: Journal of the Arctic Expedition in Search of De Long and the Jeanette, Edited by William Frederic Badé

Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. First edition. Octavo: xxxii, 280 p. with a frontispiece and 9 plates of relief halftone illustrations from photographs, including 5 by Edward S. Curtis, 5 relief halftone plates from sketches by Muir, 9 plates of line block illustrations from drawings by Muir, and a map of Wrangell Island. Original gray cloth binding, with a color relief halftone reproduction of a painting of the Corwin in the ice by Denny inset on the front panel and white titles. A bit of uneven dust soiling to the boards; else very good. Kimes 348.

In addition to its regular arctic duties as a United States Revenue Service Cutter, the Corwin steamed out of San Francisco Bay on May 4, 1881 with orders to search for the American polar exploration vessel Jeanette which had not been heard from since 1879. Muir shipped onboard as a naturalist and correspondent for the San Francisco Daily Bulletin, and this work consists of the twenty-one letters that he wrote to the Bulletin during the more than five-month voyage, supplemented with notes from his daily diary, and the two scientific reports on botany and glaciation that he wrote for the government. Muir was a gifted journalist with a reporter's instinct for the dramatic. Filled with colorful details of the arctic natives and their customs, the stark landscape, and frequently perilous adventures in an inhospitable and hazardous environment, his dispatches were eagerly read by a large audience.