Across New Guinea from the Fly to the Sepik [SIGNED by Charles Karius, leader of the expedition]
London: Constable & Co., 1932. Octavo, original cloth boards, frontis portrait (Karius) loose, b&w plates, folding map, pp xix, 267. Presentation copy, signed by the leader of the expedition (Charles Karius) and dated in the year of publication. Previous owner's bookplate (anthropologist D'arcy Ryan), light foxing, folded map taped at folds and tears, otherwise in very good condition. Important association copy of the record of the Karius Patrol which crossed New Guinea.
Ivan Francis Champion was born in Port Moresby in 1904. He was appointed as a patrol officer in New Guinea in 1924, and in 1925 was posted to Kambisi which was run by the assistant resident magistrate Charles Henry Karius. "Impressed by Champion’s composure under difficult circumstances, Karius chose him as his assistant for the North-West patrol, an ambitious attempt to cross the island of New Guinea at its widest extent. During the first attempt, from December 1926 to July 1927, Champion’s keen sense of geography and his willingness to rely on local guides enabled him to identify a passage across the Central Range. This was the route they followed on their second, successful, expedition between September 1927 and January 1928—an exceptional patrol, among previously uncontacted communities, conducted without firing a shot in anger. Emulating earlier patrol officers, Champion published his account of the expedition, Across New Guinea (1932), a classic narrative of exploration." (Australian Dictionary of Biography.). Item #93138
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