[Rarebooks] fa: A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 1789 - NATHANIEL PORTLOCK

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, April 28. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/ceh92z7

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


Nathaniel Portlock: A Voyage Round the World; But More Particularly to the North-West Coast of America: Performed in 1785, 1786, 1787, and 1788, in the King George and Queen Charlotte, Captains Portlock and Dixon. London: Printed for John Stockdale…and George Goulding, MDCCLXXXIX [1789]. FIRST EDITION; 4to (28.5 cm) in early marbled boards, freshly rebacked in black goatskin with a gilt-lettered morocco spine label; xii, 384, xl pp.; with 12 (of 20) engraved plates and maps. ESTC T99978; Hill 1376; Forbes 177; Howes P497; Lada-Mocarski 42; Sabin 64389.

An imperfect copy of the quarto first edition (lacking 8 plates and charts), but textually complete and with 10 more plates than the (abridged) octavo edition of the same year. Bumps and rubbing to the original boards; contents with intermittent toning to the text leaves and scattered soiling, a few small chips to the edges; one text leaf creased, small professional paper repairs to the title-page and first page of the dedication, frontispiece laid down and with loss to the margins; several plates trimmed slightly at the edges; folding map with browning and wear to the margins.

Besides the portrait frontispiece the plates include: Views of Bonavista; View of Cold Harbor in Cook's River; Sketch of Port Etches (folding map); View in Goulding's Harbour; View in Sapan (Leeward Isles); two plates of native weapons and artifacts, and four plates of birds.

Portlock's was the "first commercial voyage to the Northwest Coast and the first English voyage to visit Hawaii after that of Captain James Cook [with whom Portlock had sailed]" (Forbes). Undertaken primarily for the advancement of the fur trade, Portlock's voyage included an extensive exploration of northwestern America and visits to the Falkland Islands, Sandwich Islands [Hawaii], Macau and China. A wide-ranging and very readable account, it contains much on the Indians of the Northwest coast, as well as a transcript of a trial for mutiny held at Wampoa (Huangpu, China).