Borchgrevink, C. E. FIRST ON THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT: Being an Account of the British Antarctic Expedition 1898-1900. By C. E. Borchgrevink, F.R.G.S. Commander of the Expedition. With Portraits, Maps and 186 Illustrations. First Edition; pp. xvi, 334, 32(adv); 3 folding tinted maps, 19 full-page plates (including photogravure portrait frontispiece), 178 photos. in text (including text map), appendices, index; a very fine copy in a contemporary full blue calf prize binding, with the gilt arms of Geelong Grammar on front board and prize bookplate on front pastedown; the spine elaborately gilt, with red title-label; all edges gilt; marbled endpapers and blind-tooled dentelles; a most attractive volume; very scarce. London; George Newnes, Limited; 1901.
***Spence 151; U.S.N. 23-52.11; Renard 153; Rosove 45.A1(a or b). The original first issue binding of gilt- and silver-illustrated blue cloth for this book is such a stunning publisher's binding that one may ask why one would want this copy, however this has been so nicely bound, a fine example of the genre, that one may be forgiven for admiring it. The prize label, to one H. N. Higgins, for Form V English, is dated 1904, which suggests that the book may have been bound from one of the copies in the much less impressive secondary binding of red cloth. Whatever the case, and this is now quite indeterminate, the result is most attractive and is an illuminating artefact from the period. It seems evident that the binding proper was executed in England, probably as part of a batch of volumes so bound for shipping to Colonial schools. On arrival at Geelong Grammar, a local binder was commissioned to add the school's crest and a gilt border to the front and rear boards; the gilding for this border is not quite of the same colour or standard as the original binding (though still very attractive). The choice of subject matter reflects a higher standard of appreciation for the content than is often apparent in school prizes. It is a very fine, crisp and quite enchanting copy. #43051
