Details
CAPTAIN JAMES COOK (1728-1779)
John LEDYARD (1751-1789). A Journal of Captain Cook's last voyage to the Pacific Ocean and in quest of a North-West Passage between Asia & America. Hartford, Connecticut, Nathaniel Patten, 1783. 8° (169 x 115mm). (Lacking map, as usual, browned, O4 and P1 holed with slight loss.) Contemporary sheep, red morocco lettering-piece on spine (scuffed, front free endpaper and half of rear free endpaper lacking) Provenance: James Kempton (signatures); William Kempton (signatures).
FIRST EDITION of a work originally issued in two parts in June and July 1783. This copy is bound from the parts, and exhibits stab-marks to signatures A-K (part I), and none to L to the end (part II). Ledyard served as a corporal of Marines on board the Resolution. His journal, with all other journals, was retained by the Admiralty on the expeditions' return, but after jumping ship and returning to his family in Hartford, he was persuaded to re-write the journal (largely from memory) which was then published. Later in his career he made some remarkable overland journeys (largely on foot) and eventually accidentally killed himself in Cairo by drinking vitriol. Mitchell 1603; Sabin 39691 ('Very rare').
John LEDYARD (1751-1789). A Journal of Captain Cook's last voyage to the Pacific Ocean and in quest of a North-West Passage between Asia & America. Hartford, Connecticut, Nathaniel Patten, 1783. 8° (169 x 115mm). (Lacking map, as usual, browned, O4 and P1 holed with slight loss.) Contemporary sheep, red morocco lettering-piece on spine (scuffed, front free endpaper and half of rear free endpaper lacking) Provenance: James Kempton (signatures); William Kempton (signatures).
FIRST EDITION of a work originally issued in two parts in June and July 1783. This copy is bound from the parts, and exhibits stab-marks to signatures A-K (part I), and none to L to the end (part II). Ledyard served as a corporal of Marines on board the Resolution. His journal, with all other journals, was retained by the Admiralty on the expeditions' return, but after jumping ship and returning to his family in Hartford, he was persuaded to re-write the journal (largely from memory) which was then published. Later in his career he made some remarkable overland journeys (largely on foot) and eventually accidentally killed himself in Cairo by drinking vitriol. Mitchell 1603; Sabin 39691 ('Very rare').