[Rarebooks] FS: Barrington's MISCELLANIES, 1781: with several important pieces on Alaska, the North Pole, Mozart, and turkeys, illustrated with maps, portraits, and charts

[Charles Agvent]

BARRINGTON, Daines. MISCELLANIES. London: J. Nichols, 1781. First 
Edition. Quarto (8-3/4" x 11-1/4"), uncut at fore and bottom edges, 
bound in later green boards backed with tan cloth and a morocco 
gilt-lettered spine label. A curious and compelling collection 
illustrated with 2 maps, 2 portraits, and 5 charts. Hill p. 15; Howes 
B-177; New Howes B-173 "dd"; Sabin 3628; Streeter 2445. Includes 
"Journal of a Voyage in 1775 to Explore the Coast of America, Northward 
of California," with map, which, according to Lada-Mocarski 34, is the 
first and only contemporary account in English of the first Spanish 
voyage into Alaskan waters. Also included are the important essay on 
"The Possibility of Approaching the North Pole," first published 
separately in 1775-76 and not published again until 1818, and one of the 
earliest accounts in English, reprinted from a 1770 volume of 
Philosophical Transactions, of the young Mozart complete with an 
engraving of the musician at the age of seven, the first published 
portrait of the prodigy. Other essays include a treatise on whether the 
turkey was known before the discovery of America as well as essays on 
the reindeer, the bat, the cuckoo, and botanical subjects. It is 
believed that through Barrington's encouragement, Gilbert White was 
induced to write the NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. A Near Fine, large, 
and largely unopened copy.         $3,000.00

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