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Author: Burroughs, John; John Muir and George Bird Grinnell
Title: Alaska - Volumes 1 & 2 of the Harriman Expedition series
Place Published: New York
Publisher:Doubleday, Page & Company
Date Published: 1901
Description: 2 volumes (of 12, but complete in themselves). 124 plates with tissue guards, of which 39 are color-printed (14 chromolithograph landscape views by R. Swain Gifford and Fred S. Dellenbaugh) including frontispieces, numerous letterpress illustrations. 16 plates of birds, 2 of mammals, and 7 of flowers and 85 photogravures 45 of which are by Edward Curtis, as well as maps and numerous text illustrations. (4to) original gilt decorated green cloth, top edges gilt, others untrimmed. First Edition. The trip launched the career of Edward S. Curtis, and elevated those of several of the artists and scientists who contributed. In 1887 Curtis’s family moved from Wisconsin to Washington state, where he began to become known for his photos of the Indians living on the Seattle waterfront. This led to his being invited to participate in the 1899 Harriman expedition to Alaska as one of two official photographers. The 45 photogravures antedate his celebrated series on Native Americans by six years. The 1899 expedition to Alaska involved railroad baron Edward Harriman with Clinton Hart Merriam (founder of National Geographic), the principal living naturalists John Muir and John Burroughs, photographer Edward Curtis, bird artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes and many others of similar caliber on a voyage of exploration to the extreme Northwest. This was perhaps the largest private expedition to Alaska ever undertaken.

Rubbing at spine ends and at extremities, minuscule tear to cloth at head of Vol. I spine, light soiling to cloth and a few gently bumped corners; front hinge of Vol. I starting; very good.