Lot 113: FREDERICK WILLIAM BEECHEY (1796-1856)

Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering's Strait, to co-operate with The Polar Expeditions: performed in His Majesty's Ship Blossom, in the years 1825, 26, 27, 28. London: Thomas Davison for Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831. 2 volumes in 1, 4° (266 x 210mm). 3 engraved maps, 2 folding, and 23 engraved, lithographed or woodcut plates, errata slip in vol. II, without half-title in vol. II. (Folding maps lightly browned, light scattered spotting to some plates, plate facing p.188 with some offsetting.) Contemporary calf gilt, spine gilt, sides tooled in blind and gilt-ruled, marbled edges (rebacked preserving the original spine, front joint starting, extremities lightly rubbed). Provenance: Bernard Gore Brett (armorial bookplate) -- Greene & Co. (small ticket).

FIRST EDITION OF BEECHEY'S MOST FAMOUS VOYAGE. The Admiralty relief voyage to Point Barrow, Alaska, was meant to meet Sir John Franklin's overland expedition on its westward progress through the North-West Passage, although the two missed their rendezvous by a mere 160 miles. Yet Beechey's account is one of the most valuable of modern voyages and relates visits to Pitcairn Island, the Tuamotus, Tahiti, Alaska, and the coasts of China and California, with an important account of Monterey and San Francisco. In the Arctic he charted the coastline from Cape Prince of Wales to Point Barrow, and on Pitcairn Island he interviewed John Adams, last surviving mutineer of the Bounty. Arctic Bibliography 1227; Hill, p. 19; Sabin 4347.

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