Details
BOWDITCH, Nathaniel (1773-1838). The New American Practical Navigator. Newburyport, (Mass.): Edmund M. Blunt, 1802.
8o (220 x 132 mm). Folding engraved frontispiece map, 7 engraved plates, woodcut diagrams in text. (Some foxing and minor browning to text and plates.) Contemporary tree calf (rebacked preserving original spine); cloth folding case. Provenance: Joseph King, New York (contemporary signature on front free endpaper).
FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE GREATEST BOOKS ON PRACTICAL NAVIGATION. On his voyage in 1800, the skilled navigator and mathematical prodigy, Nathaniel Bowditch discovered numerous errors in the existing navigational literature in use at the time. He discovered that the various English Navigators then in use had been calculated on the erroneous assumption that 1800 was a leap year, causing his ship to go 23 miles off its course. Rather than further revising new editions on the subject, Bowditch decided to write a new book on his own. "The result was this, the best book of its kind in English ... [it] was the first complete epitome of practical navigation for the common man, and was at once acclaimed by the maritime world ... Often termed the greatest book in all the history of navigation, this intellectual achievement of our early culture was indispensable to the maritime and commercial expansion of the nineteenth century" (Grolier/American). Dibner Heralds of Science 15; Grolier/American 25; Norman 292.
[With:]
MOORE, John Hamilton (1738-1807). The New Practical Navigator, being an Epitome of Navigation... Newburyport: Edmund M. Blunt, 1799. 8o (211 x 132 mm). 8 engraved plates (some browning). Contemporary sheep (rebacked, corners worn). FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. Blunt's edition corrected "several hundred" of Moore's errors and added a number of useful new tables, some of which were furnished by Nathaniel Bowditch. "Blunt published one more edition of Moore's New practical navigator (1800), before changing its title to The new American practical navigator [see above] and crediting Bowditch as the author of the work" (Norman 1543). (2)
8o (220 x 132 mm). Folding engraved frontispiece map, 7 engraved plates, woodcut diagrams in text. (Some foxing and minor browning to text and plates.) Contemporary tree calf (rebacked preserving original spine); cloth folding case. Provenance: Joseph King, New York (contemporary signature on front free endpaper).
FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE GREATEST BOOKS ON PRACTICAL NAVIGATION. On his voyage in 1800, the skilled navigator and mathematical prodigy, Nathaniel Bowditch discovered numerous errors in the existing navigational literature in use at the time. He discovered that the various English Navigators then in use had been calculated on the erroneous assumption that 1800 was a leap year, causing his ship to go 23 miles off its course. Rather than further revising new editions on the subject, Bowditch decided to write a new book on his own. "The result was this, the best book of its kind in English ... [it] was the first complete epitome of practical navigation for the common man, and was at once acclaimed by the maritime world ... Often termed the greatest book in all the history of navigation, this intellectual achievement of our early culture was indispensable to the maritime and commercial expansion of the nineteenth century" (Grolier/American). Dibner Heralds of Science 15; Grolier/American 25; Norman 292.
[With:]
MOORE, John Hamilton (1738-1807). The New Practical Navigator, being an Epitome of Navigation... Newburyport: Edmund M. Blunt, 1799. 8o (211 x 132 mm). 8 engraved plates (some browning). Contemporary sheep (rebacked, corners worn). FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. Blunt's edition corrected "several hundred" of Moore's errors and added a number of useful new tables, some of which were furnished by Nathaniel Bowditch. "Blunt published one more edition of Moore's New practical navigator (1800), before changing its title to The new American practical navigator [see above] and crediting Bowditch as the author of the work" (Norman 1543). (2)