WILKES, Charles

Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition. During the years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842...

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Philadelphia, 1845. Six volumes in five; imperial octavo, with a portrait, 64 plates and nine maps in the text volumes, and the complete atlas bound at the end of the fifth volume; numerous vignettes in the text; without the half-titles, occasional very light offsetting, but an unusually fine copy in a handsome contemporary binding of half black morocco with marbled boards, spines gilt in compartments, top edges gilt. A superb set of the first generally available edition of the narrative of the first American naval exploring expedition.

This is the desirable first octavo edition, of which only a thousand copies were printed, the first edition to be made generally available, preceded only by the quarto official and unofficial editions, printed in just 100 and 150 copies respectively. The official edition was published by Congress, but Wilkes retained the copyright, "to protect my reputation, being unwilling that a garbled edition should be printed by others". He was happy with the present edition, writing to a Congressional committee in January 1845 that "the imperial 8vo. has been got up in beautiful style, and stereotyped - the paper and execution fully equal, and, in some respects as a library and reading book, to be preferred to the 4to. edition...".

Wilkes's six ships ranged from Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Peru, to Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore. Two of its most notable achievements were the extensive survey of the American Northwest coast and the exploration of some 1500 miles of the Antarctic coast, "thereby proving the existence of the seventh continent. Equally important, the Expedition collected and described natural history specimens from all parts of the globe - specimens that eventually came to the fledgling Smithsonian Institution, making it the National Museum of the United States. In a wider sense, the Expedition led to the emergence of the United States as a naval and scientific power with worldwide interests...". (Magnificent Voyagers, p. 9).

Later editions, including the second 1845 octavo edition, are smaller in size, do not include the fine steel-engravings found in the present edition, and are generally of inferior quality.
Haskell, 2B, 17B; Magnificent Voyagers. The U.S. Exploring Expedition', ed. H.J. Viola and C. Margolis, Smithsonian Institution, 1985.

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