Beschreibung:

Compiled by Francis L. Hawks. 3 volumes. xvii, [1], 537 pp.; [6], 414, [16], viii pp.; xliii, 705 pp. Vol. 1 illustrated with 88 plates, 2 folding plates, 4 maps, and 2 folding maps. Vol. 2 illustrated with 26 plates, 15 chart plates, and 12 folding maps. Vol. 3 illustrated with woodcut star charts throughout. (4to), 29x22 cm. (11½x8¾ in.), original blindstamped cloth, spines lettered in gilt. First Edition, Senate Issue. Detailed & profusely illustrated account of Perry's expedition to open Japan to the West; "In January 1852 [Perry] was selected to undertake the most important diplomatic mission ever intrusted to an American naval officer, the negotiation of a treaty with Japan, a country at this time sealed against intercourse with the Occidental powers" (DAB). By March 31, 1854, the treaty granting the U.S. trading rights had been signed by the Japanese. Upon his return to the U.S., his chief duty for the following year was to compile his reports of the expedition, aided by Francis Hawks. The first volume has the account of the voyage and lithographs of the travel; the second volume has the natural history reports by D.S. Green and others and includes hand-colored plates of Japanese fishes and shells. In addition to the artist W. Heine, from whose drawings a great number of the lithographs were made, the daguerreotypist E. Brown, Jr., went on the expedition, taking what were undoubtedly the earliest photographic images of Japan, many of them reproduced lithographically in this work. This copy with the nude bathing plate, which was not included on the list of plates and not issued in all copies, being suppressed. Hill I: 230-1.Sabin 30968. Bookplate of G. Phillip Wardner and Mary R. Wardner.