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First Edition, 1912, "A Negro Explorer At The North Pole" - by Matthew Henson

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First-Edition-1912-A-Negro-Explorer-At-The-North-Pole-by-Matthew-Henson
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Ripon, California, United States
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160740402477
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Last updated on  Feb 18, 2012 00:26:14 PST  View all revisions

Item specifics

Binding: In tact library binding Special Attributes: 1st Edition
Year Printed: 1912 Origin: American
Matthew Henson, North Pole, Robert E. Peary
A Negro Explorer At The North Pole
First Edition, Copyright 1912 by Matthew A. Henson. A rare and valuable volume. Condition is exceptional for this 100 year old volume. Library binding intact as shown. My father wrote Henson's biography, Dark Companion, with Henson in 1947—which I still keep in print. Henson was a much loved "adopted" member of our family and I maintain a website to keep the memory of his achievements alive.
Reviews from 100 years ago!
"...it is a story that will bear repetition, and Mr. Henson has told it in a form that will probably have its appeal to many people who would hesitate before the formidable bulk of Peary's own authoritative account." (The Nation)
Review from The Nation, April 11, 1912

"Many books have been written to commemorate a smaller event than a visit to the North Pole. Matthew A. Henson, author of "A Negro Explorer at the North Pole (Stokes), had been Rear-Admiral Peary's body-servant for twenty-one years and his companion in every Arctic venture since 1891, before he attained the distinction of being with Peary the only man from civilization to reach the Pole. Mr. Henson's little book is a narrative of personal impressions, told for the most part in straightforward style, but marred here and there by bits of passionate prose which one imagines were inserted by another hand other than the author's. There was no particular necessity for the brief introduction by Booker T. Washington in which is pointed out with almost Teutonic scholarship how the negro has been the white man's companion in the history of discovery since the earliest voyages of the sixteenth century. We could have spared the elaboration of the same truth in the author's own words:

From the building of the Pyramids and the journey of the Cross, to the discovery of the New World and the discovery of the North Pole, the negro has been the faithful companion of the Caucasian, and I felt all that it was possible for me to feel, that it was I, a lowly member of my race, who had been chosen by fate to represent it in this almost the last of the World's great work.

Mr. Henson makes no attempt to give full and consecutive account of the dash for the Pole. Completeness in such a story means the inclusion of a great deal of astronomical and other scientific data based on fuller records than Mr. Henson, in nature of the case, was able to compile. Yet it is a story that will bear repetition, and Mr. Henson has told it in a form that will probably have its appeal to many people who would hesitate before the formidable bulk of Peary's own authoritative account.
"Admiral Peary's assistant in the discovery of the north pole has shown that he can write entertainingly as well as work efficiently upon arctic expeditions. His little volume, entitled A Negro Explorer at the North Pole," make a really valuable addition to the literature of Admiral Peary's final, successful expedition, so naively does he tell his story, with its innumerable bits of incident, occupation, description, emotion, comment. " (New York Times)
Review from The New York Times, March 17, 1912

Admiral Peary's assistant in the discovery of the north pole has shown that he can write entertainingly as well as work efficiently upon arctic expeditions. His little volume, entitled A Negro Explorer at the North Pole," make a really valuable addition to the literature of Admiral Peary's final, successful expedition, so naively does he tell his story, with its innumerable bits of incident, occupation, description, emotion, comment. Many of the things he recounts are unimportant in themselves, but they help wonderfully in filling out the picture and in enabling the reader to get a more definite idea of what the life and labors of an arctic explorer are like. It is precisely because of the lack of these colorful touches and because their authors are concerned solely with affairs of great moment that books of polar exploration so often do not appeal to the general reader.

Matt Henson's narrative is a very personal one, and it is usually he who is the centre of his story. But perhaps that fact, too, makes it gain in vividness, since it is always through his deeply interested eyes that we see all that is going on. Admiral Peary's brief "Foreword" is a cordial acknowledgement of Henson's efficiency in the work they have done together. Mr. Washington, in his "Introduction," draws attention to the aid that been given to explorers by negro assistants through so much of the history of this continent.
Henson was a marvelous man whose character was praised by all who knew him. He has become one of the most powerful icons for Black History; standing next to the most respected of all African American heroes. It is important to continue to acknowledge Henson's lifetime achievements because of an insidious attempt by racists to discredit Peary and "his negro assistant" by what congressman Fess referred to as "people not easily classified in polite terms."

Henson is buried in Arlington National Cemetery next to Adm. Robert E. Peary.
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