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

BYRD, Richard Evelyn. [Eleanor Roosevelt].

$3,500.00

Item Number: 124132

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

Signed limited edition of Byrd’s account of his first expedition to the South Pole. Octavo, original publisher’s half parchment over blue boards, with 74 illustrations and maps. Author’s Autograph Edition, one of one thousand copies signed by the author and publisher on the limitation leaf, this is number 303. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “To Eleanor Roosevelt with the highest possible admiration and affectionate regards Dick Byrd New Years Day 1931.” The recipient, Eleanor Roosevelt, first met Richard Byrd when her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Byrd, a recent graduate of the Naval Academy, had been assigned to the gunboat USS Dolphin, which also served as the yacht of the Secretary of the Navy. Upon Byrd’s return to American soil in 1930 following his first expedition to the Antarctic, he was welcomed by President Roosevelt who, with Eleanor, later attended an honorary dinner given by the International Rescue Committee held in Byrd’s honor. In very good condition with a closed tear to the crown of the spine and dampstaining to the spine and lower portion of the front panel. An exceptional association.

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.