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KRUZENSHTERN, Ivan Fedorovich (1770-1846). Wörter-Sammlungen aus den Sprachen einiger Völker des östlichen Asiens und der Nordwest-Küste von Amerika. St. Petersburg: at the Admiralty Press, 1813.
The very rare first edition of this important study of North Pacific languages. This work expands considerably on the linguistics introduced in Kruzenshtern’s account of his famous circumnavigation (1809). Here four languages are covered, two of these – Kenai and Kolosh – spoken by inhabitants of Alaska. Kruzenshtern also devotes several pages of his preface to a valuable appreciation of Nikolai Khvostov and Gavriil Davydov, who had died after a night of heavy drinking, and to Rozanov’s questionable instruction to the men that they should attack the Japanese installations on the Kurile Islands. The decline that followed in the relations between the two countries ultimately led to Captain Golovnin’s infamous imprisonment by the Japanese. RBH and ABPC record that the last copy offered at auction was in 1969 (the Thomas Phillipps copy, sold, Parke-Bernet, auction 2920, lot 1039, $480). Arctic Bib. 9382; Lada-Mocarski 70; Sabin 38333; Wickersham 2584.
Quarto (263 x 215mm, with deckle edges). With the leaf of errata. (Occasional light spotting.) Late 19th-century half sheep, the spine lettered directly in gilt, top edge gilt, marbled endpapers (extremities rubbed). Provenance: 19th-century shelf mark (“Lxxxix.b.b”, on the endpaper) – John Michael Lang Fine Books.
The very rare first edition of this important study of North Pacific languages. This work expands considerably on the linguistics introduced in Kruzenshtern’s account of his famous circumnavigation (1809). Here four languages are covered, two of these – Kenai and Kolosh – spoken by inhabitants of Alaska. Kruzenshtern also devotes several pages of his preface to a valuable appreciation of Nikolai Khvostov and Gavriil Davydov, who had died after a night of heavy drinking, and to Rozanov’s questionable instruction to the men that they should attack the Japanese installations on the Kurile Islands. The decline that followed in the relations between the two countries ultimately led to Captain Golovnin’s infamous imprisonment by the Japanese. RBH and ABPC record that the last copy offered at auction was in 1969 (the Thomas Phillipps copy, sold, Parke-Bernet, auction 2920, lot 1039, $480). Arctic Bib. 9382; Lada-Mocarski 70; Sabin 38333; Wickersham 2584.
Quarto (263 x 215mm, with deckle edges). With the leaf of errata. (Occasional light spotting.) Late 19th-century half sheep, the spine lettered directly in gilt, top edge gilt, marbled endpapers (extremities rubbed). Provenance: 19th-century shelf mark (“Lxxxix.b.b”, on the endpaper) – John Michael Lang Fine Books.