A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Henson

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A Negro Explorer at The North Pole

The book Matthew Henson wrote in 1912
2007 update - now with black tape binding, no longer spiral bound.

Originally published in 1912 this is the only fully restored & respectful edition you can buy. There is, unfortunately, another version of this book that contains a lengthy negative introduction intended to destroy Henson's credibility. My version is NOT that version! This edition reveals only the joyful magic that was Henson's unique voice as a writer.

• It is always a delightful read that is worth re-reading from time to time as many of us do.

• Henson's book makes a wonderful gift to your school or local library!

(above) Old image of spiral bound edition. Is now tape binding. Due to customer preferences.

I was offended that a 1969 edition deleted the 1912 Foreword and Introduction. Matt's title was changed to "A Black Explorer..." and Henson's Appendix I & II were eliminated. My edition restored everything! Words are spelled the way Henson spelled them. I didn't change his “Esquimos” to Eskimos, or modernize it to "Inuit". Henson's hyphenated “to-day”, as an another example, was common usage in 1912. The complete text has been transferred into digital format to allow modern printing. A faithful re-issue without any new introductions by an author with an agenda to slur Henson.

• Easy to read 14 pt. Adobe Garamond type, coil-bound pages lay flat for library style reading. High grade acid free paper is purest white, crisp and opaque to eliminate read-through.

• Proceeds help to pay for the free educational websites dedicated to Matthew Henson.

After I completed this book another publisher released a photocopied edition that actually stole several unique photos from my book! This "other version" contains an "Introduction by Robert Bryce" comprised of 28-pages of what I believe is the most negative & racist slurs ever published against Henson. I found it unbelievably hateful! Robert Bryce, for example, claimed that Henson wasn't intelligent enough to have written his own book, etc. In truth, Henson was quite intelligent; in fact before Henson wrote his book he produced a splendid magazine article about his 1909 trip to the Pole. He illustrated it with his own photos from the Kodak camera he took along. This proved what a marvelous writer Henson was. 1910 World's Work Magazine article.

Thirty five years later my father, Bradley Robinson, met Henson and found him to be so articulate that together they wrote Matt's entire biography; Dark Companion.

So please alert your school and library to any such racist anti-Henson rhetoric.

Thank you. Verne Robinson, 2006

"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, makes 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."

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.

"...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."

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.

Matthew Henson surprised the world with his own account of reaching the North Pole with Peary. His unique writer's voice is a delightful change from the stiff, academic tone of other exploration books. Matt was a bright and cheerful person who made remarkable observations of the details others left out. With his 4x5 camera he also provided photographs. After the Pole Peary wrote a 10-part series of magazine articles for Hampton's while Henson was published by "The World's Work" magazine in 1910. Henson proved to be both a reliable explorer and a charming writer!

US Postage stamp commemorating the achievement

Matthew A. Henson explored the arctic with Commander Robert E. Peary for 18 years until they reached the North Pole. Their brilliant expedition in 1909 is still to this day the only one to master the deadly 1,000 mile round trip dash over the ocean by dog sledge. This book details how African American Henson participated in an event that was, in its time, the equivalent of reaching the moon.

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."

Give as this book as a gift to schools, libraries, Black History Month programs, or as inspiration for young people.

Thank you for buying this wonderful book,
written by such a special man!

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