CORRESPONDENCE RESPECTING H.M.S. RESOLUTE, AND THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION [Search for Sir John Franklin]. Presented to The House of Commons by Command of Her Majesty, in pursuance of their Address dated May 21, 1858.

London: Printed by Harrison and Sons, 1858. Folio. [2pp] (List of Papers) + 39pp + [1pp]. 20th-century half leather with marbled boards, gilt titles. Internally clean. Near fine. An interesting collection of correspondence relating to the HMS Resolute, with some content on the later searches for the lost Franklin expedition. The work contains brief letters and a newspaper account of the recovery of the HMS Resolute, abandoned by Sir Edward Belcher the previous year, which was found drifting in the Davis Strait off Cape Mercy in September 1855 by Capt. James Buddington. Buddington sailed the ship south to New London and was able to claim the vessel when the British government relinquished all rights to the ship shortly thereafter. The vessel was then acquired by the American government, who restored the ship and returned it to the British. Contains important correspondence from Lady Jane Franklin, which challenges John Rae's £10,000 reward for supposedly ascertaining the fate of the Franklin expedition and calls for further searches for her husband's lost party. A partner's desk made from timbers of the HMS Resolute desk was presented as a gift from Queen Victoria to American President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. The desk resides in the White House and has been used by every American president since. [Arctic Bibliography 45250].…