Beschreibung:

BLIGH, Admiral WILLIAM. A Voyage to the South Sea, undertaken by command of His Majesty, for the purpose of conveying the Bread-Fruit Tree to the West-Indies in His Majesty's Ship the Bounty, commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh. Including an account of the Mutiny...and the subsequent voyage of part of the crew, in the ship's boat from Tofoa...to Timor. London: for George Nicol 1792. 4to, 295 x 237mm. (11 5/8 x 9 5/16in.), contemporary calf gilt, rebacked, corners worn, folding plates offset, other plates offset to text, gutter margin of frontispiece reinforced. FIRST EDITION, engraved portrait frontispiece by Condé after Russell, 4 engraved charts (3 folding), 2 folding plans, 1 plate. Cast adrift after the mutiny in Bounty's 23-ft. open launch, Bligh and eighteen officers and crew were without charts and chronometer. With provisions barely able to sustain life (sometimes a 25th of a pound of bread and a quarter of a pint of water thrice a day), they made their epic voyage of 3618 nautical miles from Tofoa to Timor. Bligh led his men to safety in 41 days, losing only one sailor, to a native attack in Tofoa. "This is the first edition of the official account....It includes a somewhat revised version of the text of Bligh's Narrative [published in 1790]. The account was based on Bligh's journal but was written, edited, and seen through the press by James Burney under the supervision of Sir Joseph Banks, during Bligh's absence from London on his second breadfruit voyage"--Hill, p. 27. Provenance : Charles S. Smith book-label.