The Antarctic Continent was inhabited, it seems, in the days of Queen Elizabeth by four main peoples, the crapulous folk of Tenter-belly, the vira-goes of Shee-landt, the morons of Fooliana, and the pirates and highwaymen of Theevingen. The author of this voyage pretends to have visited all these places, and records his impressions with the circumstantial pen of a journalist, and with an energy and relish barely surpassed by Rabelais himself. The result is unique, for it is the only authentic legend of the Antarctic, and yet it is also a fantasy, a burlesque, a satire, and an encyclopedia of learning, all in one salvo. The editor’s devoted but unobtrusive labors have made this first modern edition of an excessively rare text definitive, and it goes forth with the enthusiastic endorsement of the great explorer to whose achievement it is dedicated as a fitting token of homage.