Lot 81: 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 under the command of... Beechey... in the years 1825, 26, 27, 28. London: Thomas Davison for Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1831. 2 volumes, 4o (272 x 213mm.). 26 maps and plates (comprising: 23 plates [11 engraved, 2 wood-engraved, 6 aquatint, and 4 lithographs]) and 3 folding maps. (Lacking publishers' advertisements at the end of vol.II, some browning to plates). Contemporary calf gilt, covers with double-fillet borders, spines in six compartments with fasle raised bands, red morocco lettering pieces in the second and fourth, the others with gilt double-fillet borders (some light scuffing to covers). FIRST EDITION, a good copy of 'one of the most valuable of modern voyages' (Hill). 'Captain Beechey, near Point Barrow, Alaska, and Sir John Franklin had arrived within fifty leagues of each other when the latter was compelled by weather to return. Beechey's book... relates to extensive visits to Pitcairn Island, the Tuamotu Archipelago, the Scoiety Islands and Tahiti, Alaska, Hawaii, Macao, Okinawa, and the coast of California. His book gives an important account of Monterey and San Francisco before the American conquest and gives his impression of the Missionaries in San Francisco. Beechey describes the Eskimos of the north and relates his meeting with John Adams, last survivor of the mutiny on the Bounty, who gave Beechey a lengthy account. In the course of this voyage, Beechey discovered several islands in the Pacific' (Hill). Hill p.19; Sabin 4347; cf.Spence 111 (8o edition).