A Negro Explorer At The North Pole. First Edition 1912 ( Matthew Alexander Henson (august 8, 1866 – March 9, 1955)

NY: Fredrick A. Stokes Company. Good with no dust jacket. 1912. First thus. Cloth. Ex-Library; photos; 8 vo; 125, appendix 5pp. pages; Full length picture of author as the frontis. That leaf is Starting and proud so the outer edge is worn. This you can see in the photo. Matthew Alexander Henson (August 8, 1866 – March 9, 1955) was an African American explorer who accompanied Robert Peary on seven voyages to the Arctic over a period of nearly 23 years. They spent a total of 18 years on expeditions together. [1] He is best known for his participation in the 1908–1909 expedition that claimed to have reached the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. Henson said he was the first of their party to reach the North Pole. (courtesy of Wikipedia) Their claim had gained widespread acceptance but in 1989, Wally Herbert published research that found that their expedition records were unreliable and indicated an implausibly high speed during their final rush for the pole, and that the men could have fallen 30–60 miles (48–97 km) short of the pole due to navigational errors. In 1912 Henson published a memoir about his arctic explorations, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. In this, he describes himself as a "general assistant, skilled craftsperson, interpreter, and laborer." [1] He later collaborated with author Bradley Robinson on his 1947 biography, Dark Companion, which told more about his life. During the extended expeditions to Greenland, Henson and Peary both took Inuit women as "country wives" and fathered children with them. Front hinge starting and partly separated. .