Description
The first edition, “Admiralty Issue,” of Narrative Of A Voyage To The Pacific And Beering’s Straight by Captain F.W. Beechey, published 1831.
Quarto, [two-parts in one], [2], xxi, [3], [errata], [393] -742pp, [2]. Full green morocco, five raised bands, double gilt-rule covers. Contemporary marbled endpapers, marbled leafends, silk bookmark. Both hinges reinforced with cloth backing, archival restoration to leather. Light wear and bumped corners, solid text block. Sporadic foxing to plates, transference on maps with light foxing along margins. Armorial bookplate of Charles Tebbut on front pastedown. Includes the errata slip, but lacking half-titles. This work is complete, with 23 engraved aquatint plates, three maps (two folding).
(Arctic Bibliography, 1227) (Hill, 93) (Howes B-309) (Sabin 4347) (Zamorano, 4)
The “Admiralty Issue” of this work preceded the two-volume octavo edition, also published in 1831.
From Sabin: “One of the most valuable of modern voyages, containing a most interesting visit to Pitcairn Island, the coast of California, etc.”
This work by Captain Frederick William Beechey is the published account of HMS Blossom’s expedition (1825-1828), undertaken to support British Arctic exploration and to attempt contact with overland parties searching for a Northwest Passage, Beechey surveyed the Pacific coast of North America, the Bering Strait, and the Alaskan littoral, producing important hydrographic observations, coastal charts, and ethnographic notes on Indigenous communities encountered along the way. He also made contact with John Adams, the last survivor of the Bounty mutiny on Pitcairn Island.
