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Details
WRANGEL (also VRANGEL), Fedinand Petrovich (1797-1870). Statistische und ethnographische Nachrichten über die Russischen Besitzungen an der Norwestküste von Amerika. Edited by K.E. von Baer. St. Petersburg: at the press of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1839.
The rare first edition; the Leuchtenberg copy, in a fine Russian morocco binding, of “one of the fundamental works on Alaska as the Russians knew it” (Lada-Mocarski). Maximillian Leuchtenberg was the son-in-law of Nicholas I, having married the tsar’s eldest daughter Mariia Nikolaevna. Wrangel was Chief Administrator of Russia’s American colonies from 1830 to 1835; his “is an authoritative eye-witness account which gives much information not available to someone who merely participated in one of the expeditions to Alaska”; “Baer's preface contributes much to the value of this book, particularly his remarks on how far south the Eskimos had penetrated before the appearance of the Russians. The vocabularies of various native tribes are carefully prepared and are valuable” (Lada-Mocarski). RBH and ABPC record only one copy having sold at auction. Arctic Bib. 19003; Howes W-689; Lada-Mocarski 106.
Octavo (212 x 125mm). Folding engraved map; folding letterpress table. (Occasional scattered spotting.) Contemporary Russian polished dark-green morocco, the sides paneled in gilt using foliate corner tools, the spine flat and lettered directly in gilt within a large central panel with gilt sprays, gilt edges, pink coated endpapers (negligible wear). Provenance: Maximillian, third duke of Leuchtenberg (1817-1852; bookplate) – Maggs Bros. Ltd.
The rare first edition; the Leuchtenberg copy, in a fine Russian morocco binding, of “one of the fundamental works on Alaska as the Russians knew it” (Lada-Mocarski). Maximillian Leuchtenberg was the son-in-law of Nicholas I, having married the tsar’s eldest daughter Mariia Nikolaevna. Wrangel was Chief Administrator of Russia’s American colonies from 1830 to 1835; his “is an authoritative eye-witness account which gives much information not available to someone who merely participated in one of the expeditions to Alaska”; “Baer's preface contributes much to the value of this book, particularly his remarks on how far south the Eskimos had penetrated before the appearance of the Russians. The vocabularies of various native tribes are carefully prepared and are valuable” (Lada-Mocarski). RBH and ABPC record only one copy having sold at auction. Arctic Bib. 19003; Howes W-689; Lada-Mocarski 106.
Octavo (212 x 125mm). Folding engraved map; folding letterpress table. (Occasional scattered spotting.) Contemporary Russian polished dark-green morocco, the sides paneled in gilt using foliate corner tools, the spine flat and lettered directly in gilt within a large central panel with gilt sprays, gilt edges, pink coated endpapers (negligible wear). Provenance: Maximillian, third duke of Leuchtenberg (1817-1852; bookplate) – Maggs Bros. Ltd.