Little America: Aerial Exploration in the Antarctic, The Flight to the South Pole.

BYRD, Richard E.

Item Number: 96218

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1930.

First edition of Byrd’s account of his first expedition to the South Pole. Octavo, original cloth, pictorial endpapers, engraved frontispiece portrait of Byrd, with 74 illustrations and maps. Signed by Richard Byrd on the half-title page. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. A sharp example.

Admiral Byrd here chronicles his first expedition to the Antarctic which began aboard two ships and three airplanes in 1928 and returned to North America in 1930. The expedition's base camp, constructed on the Ross Ice Shelf was named "Little America", and it was from here that Byrd's scientific expeditions by snowshoe, dog-sled, snowmobile, and airplane began. On November 28, 1929, after the team's first winter in the Antarctic, the first flight to the South Pole and back was launched, and successfully completed, with a total flight time of 18 hours and 41 minutes.