Voyage Of The "Prince Albert" In Search Of Sir John Franklin: A Narrative Of Every-Day Life In The Arctic Seas. Snow, W. Parker. Arctic

London: Longman, Brown, etc., 1851. 1st edition. Small 8vo. xvi + 416pp. 4 colour lithograph plates (one as frontispiece, and another as an extra title leaf), folding partly coloured lithograph map (showing the Prince Albert's track to and from the Arctic seas). Original blue embossed cloth, with gilt image on front cover of a three-man crew at the top of a mast. Blue patterned endpapers, with publisher advertisements. Bright and very fine. Parker Snow was a clerk with the Lady Franklin-sponsored British Franklin Search Expedition of 1850 aboard the Prince Albert under C.C. Forsyth. The expedition focused on the region of Boothia Peninsula and Prince Regent Inlet, and encountered other ships searching for Franklin. Snow describes their voyage around Baffin Bay, through Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Wellington Channel, Prince Regent Inlet, and Admiralty Inlet. The expedition had originally planned to winter in Prince Regent Inlet and make two exploratory sledge trips, but upon learning that H.T. Austin's party had discovered Franklin's winter quarters on nearby Beechey Island, they decided that the news was sufficiently important to cut short their plans and sail back immediately to convey the findings to Lady Franklin and the Admiralty. [AB 16362 incorrectly noting that Snow acted in the capacity of "ship's doctor"; Snow was a clerk, and mentions in his book on page viii that they had "no regular surgeon" on board).