La Pérouse, Jean François:

$2,750 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. PERFORMED IN THE YEARS 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788...TO WHICH ARE ADDED, A VOYAGE FROM MANILLA TO CALIFORNIA, BY DON ANTONIO MAURELLE: AND AN ABSTRACT OF THE VOYAGE AND ... This copy bears the bookplate on the front pastedown of James Edge Partington (1854-1930), the well-respected British anthropologist who was especially interested in Pacific island ethnology.The rare first American edition of one of the most important Pacific voyages. The La Pérouse account was first published in Paris in French in 1797, and in English in 1798. This is one of the earliest Pacific voyages to appear in an American edition and, published much less modestly than the French and British editions, would have been the way the average American would have learned about La Pérouse's important surveys of the Pacific coast and his descriptions of native Americans there. This is also the first American version (although only a précis) of Vancouver's voyage, first published in London in 1798. The 1781 voyage of Spanish naval officer Francisco Antonio Mourelle (incorrectly spelled in this edition's title) went from the Philippines to the South Pacific, where he explored in the vicinity of New Guinea and the Tonga Islands before sailing to Mexico. Howes is inaccurate in his pagination of this edition, and the Hill copy contains a map that was added later.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.