[Rarebooks] fa: 1773 Gentleman's Magazine: VOYAGE OF CAPTAIN COOK Kangaroo PHILLIS WHEATLEY &c.

[ArCh]

Auction ending Sunday, October 9. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/5n827ram

Many thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle. Volume XLIII [43]. For the Year MDCCLXXIII [1773]. London: Printed at St. John's Gate, for D. Henry, [1773]. Twelve monthly issues (Jan.-Dec.), plus the supplement, volume title, indices and preface. Thick 8vo in early quarter calf and marbled boards, gilt-lettered morocco spine label; [4] + 655 + [17] pp.; with numerous in-text charts and tables, woodcut diagrams and illustrations, plus 27 copper-engraved plates and maps, five of which are folding, one tinted.

Of significant interest for containing extensive material related to CAPTAIN COOK & EXPLORATION IN THE PACIFIC, including:
	- A folding MAP of "the Track of the Dolphin, Tamar, Swallow & Endeavour, through the South Seas, & of the Track of M. Bougainville round the World", depicting the voyages of Cook, Anson, Byron, Wallis, Carteret, etc., along with another folding MAP (not mentioned in the Directions to the Binder) tracking voyages off the coasts of North and South America. (There is yet a third part to this map, depicting the coasts of Africa and Asia, but it has been bound into our copy of the 1774 volume of the Magazine, which will be offered shortly).
	- A two-part account of COOK'S SECOND VOYAGE, "An Epitome of the Voyage round the World, by Lieutenant Cook, accompanied by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander" (ca. 13 double-columned pages), dealing largely with the discovery of the east coast of Australia and Tahiti.
	- The first published depiction of a KANGAROO, "a new species, never yet described… found in the woods on the coast of New Wales" and brought back by Joseph Banks aboard the Endeavour. An iconic image, engraved after George Stubbs, it was used on the reverse of the Royal Australian Mint's 2013 "Kangaroo Series" of gold and silver coins.
	- An engraving of a BREADFRUIT and a MAORI WAR CANOE (with offsetting) after Sydney Parkinson, the artist on Cook's voyage, accompanied by a description.
	- A multi-part "Epitome of Capt. [Samuel] Wallis's Voyage round the World" (ca. 22 pp.).
	- A two-part "Epitome of the Dolphin and Tamar's Voyage round the World, under the Command of Commodore Byron and Capt. Mourat" (ca. 12 pp.)
	- Additional material on voyages made by Bougainville, Carteret, etc.

This volume is also significant for the appearance of the poem "On Recollection" by PHILLIS WHEATLEY, identified on the September issue's title-page as "Phillis, the African." A footnote to the poem itself describes her as "a negro of Boston, who was brought from Africa in 1761, and is now only in the twenty-first year of her age." Going on to summarize the attestation, signed by a number of prominent Bostonians, that Wheatley's poems were indeed written by her, the author of the footnote makes his abolitionist feelings clear: "and in this [document] it is said, disgraceful as it may be to all that have signed it, that "this poor girl was brought an uncultivated barbarian from Africa, and has ever since been, and now is—A SLAVE!" This version of the poem differs significantly from its first appearance a year earlier in The London Magazine. Interestingly, an article in an earlier issue (May) of this same volume, entitled "Some Account of Phillis, a learned Negro Girl," contains a note regarding the upcoming publication of Wheatley's poems, accompanied by a letter from her master, John Wheatley, and a more complete text of the attestation.

Other plates include: A General Plan of the Canals in England (folding); Elevation and Geometrical Profile of the Abbey Church of St. Nicaise at Rheims (folding and printed in sepia); Elevation of the House of Confucius in Kew Gardens; the Giraffe, or Camelopardus, and the Chinese Antelope; the Tapir and the Heppepotame (the oddest-looking hippopotamus we've ever seen); the Oriole Bird; a Plan of Solway Moss, Cumberland; A simple Apparatus for making Experiments on Air; several plates of Curiosities found at Herculaneum; two plates related to carriage design: James Sharpe's Rolling Carriages (folding) and A Contrivance for stopping Carriages descending steep Hills; etc.

Binding with rubbing, wear to the corners and spine head, some cracking to the joints but the boards are secure; bottom fore-corner of the preliminary volume title-page torn off, contents very mildly toned with intermittent offsetting, the latter growing more pronounced in the latter pages; else unusually clean and fresh, firmly bound. Front paste-down with the handsome bookplate of Marius Nielsen (engraved by Johannes Britze).