The Log of H.M.S. Providence, 1791–1793 (Limited Deluxe Edition)

A$1,000 · Offered by Harry Hartog Rare Books

BLIGH, William (preface Admiral of the Fleet, the Earl Mountbatten of Burma; intro. Stephen Walters D. G. C. Allan). The Log of H.M.S. Providence, 1791–1793. Guildford: Genesis Publications, 1976. Thick Folio. Half brown polished calf and green buckram cloth. Front cover with vignette of the breadfruit plant in gilt. Spine with raised bands, gilt-decorated compartments, titled in gilt on dark brown Morocco panel. Green speckled edges. Marbled endpapers. 951 pp. Colour collotype frontispiece reproducing Sydney Parkinson's breadfruit watercolour, with tissue guard. Five folding maps. Numerous black and white illustrations and facsimiles throughout. Complete reproduction of John Ellis's A Description of the Mangostan and the Breadfruit (1775); notes on the breadfruit plant by David Bellamy OBE. Limited edition. Limited to 500 numbered copies, this being number 483. Bookplate of Milton Whitmont to front free endpaper. Facsimile of the manuscript held in the National Archives, Kew. Two years after the mutiny that cast him adrift in an open boat, William Bligh (1754–1817) returned to the Pacific to complete the mission the Bounty had failed to accomplish: the transport of breadfruit saplings from Tahiti to the West Indies, where it was hoped the fast-growing, calorie-dense fruit could provide cheap and reliable food for enslaved plantation workers. This second voyage, in command of HMS Providence accompanied by the armed tender Assistant , ran from 1791 to 1793 and succeeded entire

• Binding: Hardcover

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