[Rarebooks] fa: A POEM ON A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY - 1792 (re: Capt. Cook, Vancouver, Bligh, etc.)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other 17th & 18th-Century English works,  
auctions ending Sunday, March 27. More details and images can be found  
at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://shop.ebay.com/arch_in_la/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562

Cheers,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

[A Poem on a Voyage of Discovery, undertaken by a Brother of the  
Author’s, with Sonnets, &c. London: Printed for C. and G. Kearsley,  
No. 46, Fleet-Street, 1792.] First and only edition. Disbound 4to  
(25.5 x 21 cm); [5]-52 [of 59] pp.  Sabin 63584; Forbes 222; ESTC  
T53816.

First, the bad news: lacking the title-page and "Subject" leaf; also  
lacking the last four leaves consisting of the author's translation of  
Petrarch's 26th Canzone and a terminal blank, for a total of six  
leaves gone missing— BUT the good news is: the volume's main  
attraction, the 30-page title poem is present in its entirety, as are  
all the author's sonnets. The extant text begins with the first page  
of the title poem (here caption-titled "Verses on a Voyage of  
Discovery") and ends with the first page of the Canzone. Remnants of  
old leather binding on the spine; rubbing and soiling to the first  
and, to a lesser extent, the last page, first two leaves with  
professional paper repairs to the fore-edges; corners a trifle bumped,  
a few tiny spots; otherwise exceedingly clean, bright and fresh,  
firmly bound. Now housed, together with facsimiles of the missing  
leaves, in a handsome custom portfolio of marbled boards and cloth  
with a reproduction of the original title-page on the front cover.

Something of a black orchid for collectors of literature related to  
the exploration of the Pacific, "very rare [and the only] literary  
effusion" inspired by the voyage of George Vancouver (David W. Forbes,  
Hawaiian National Bibliography). Published anonymously, the poem is  
generally attributed to Brian Broughton, brother of Lt. William Robert  
Broughton, who, as commander of HMS Chatham, accompanied Vancouver  
into the Pacific Ocean. As the expedition had set sail just the year  
before and wouldn't return until 1795, the poet's "Description of the  
present Voyage" is understandably sketchy, but he does provide a  
sweeping if hyperbolic nutshell history of Pacific exploration, from  
Columbus and Magellan up to his own day...

Of particular interest is the lengthy description of the Hawaiian  
Islands and Capt. Cook's death there (William Broughton had earlier  
served under Cook as a midshipman): "By savage hands his corse was  
rudely torn, / With savage yells his limbs in triumph borne..." Also  
of interest are significant passages on Easter Island ("...these huge  
monuments of shapeless stone / Time's baffled rage defy, their use  
unknown"), Otaheite (Tahiti), the West Indies and the polar regions  
("Where slumb'ring seas forget their floods to roll, / And icy  
barriers hide the trackless pole"), and references to Nootka, Van  
Diemen's Land, Capt. William Bligh (described in a footnote as  
presently undertaking the "conveyance of the Bread-Fruit Tree from  
Otaheite to the West-Indies"), the slave trade and human sacrifice, as  
well as frequent allusions to the civilizing benefits of Commerce and  
the Spread of Knowledge ("Then go, my friend, proceed where Science  
guides; / Go, state the solar height, and mark the tides...").
An imperfect but fundamentally complete copy of a fascinating and  
desirable rarity: ESTC locates only 3 copies in the U.S. (Harvard,  
NYPL, Illinois), and 3 in the UK (BL, Bodleian, All Souls).