A narrative of the mutiny on board His Majesty’s ship Bounty;

A$10,000 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

and the subsequent voyage of part of the crew, in the ship s boat, from Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch settlement in the East Indies. Illustrated with charts. London : George Nicol, 1790. Quarto, half-calf over marbled papered boards, gilt-decorated spine with contrasting morocco title labels, folding engraved frontispiece of the draught of the Bounty (old creases), pp iv, folding chart of the voyage of Bligh in the open boat, 88; two further engraved plates (one folding), some light offsetting and foxing, a very good copy. The first edition of Bligh s own account of one of the most famous events in maritime history, and of what is generally acknowledged as one of the great feats of navigation. The breadfruit, a species of flowering mulberry tree native to Southeast Asia and most of the Pacific Islands, had first been brought back to Europe from Tahiti by Sir Joseph Banks in 1770. It was at the instigation of Banks, who had recognised the breadfruit s enormous potential as a staple food product, and in particular as an economical means of feeding slaves, that Lieutenent William Bligh s ill-fated 1787 expedition to Tahiti in the Bounty was mounted. Bligh s brief was to collect as many samples of breadfruit as possible with the intention of propagating them in the Caribbean. Bligh s narrative commences on April 29, 1789, shortly after the Bounty s departure from Tahiti. Led by Fletcher Christian, 24 of the ship s crew mutinied; Bligh and 18 loyal men were

• Binding: Hardcover

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