BLIGH, William

A Voyage to the South Sea...

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Printed for George Nicol London, 1792. Quarto, with frontispiece portrait, and seven plans and charts; offsetting from the plates as common, but an unusually clean copy of the text; fine in a handsome early binding of tan half calf over marbled boards, spine banded and beautifully gilt. First edition of one of the most famous of all voyage books: the full official narrative of Bligh's voyage in the Bounty and the mutiny. At the time of publication Bligh was on his second breadfruit voyage, and the work was edited for the press by James Burney, with the assistance of Sir Joseph Banks, both of whom had also sailed with Cook.

The open-boat voyage, one of the most famous feats of seamanship of all time, was also notable for the coastal discoveries made almost accidentally in the course of the desperate voyage. Bligh was justifiably proud of his achievements in mapping and charting during his travails, and each of the printed charts features his name prominently: the sketch of Matavai Bay in Tahiti even features his signature in facsimile (particularly notable given Bligh's fury that his work on the charts of Cook's third voyage was not recognised - see catalogue no. XXX).

The advertisement to this work comments that Bligh had originally intended to issue his account of the first part of the voyage of the Bounty as a separate work. Bligh had, of course, issued the Narrative quickly, noting here that this haste 'was for the purpose of communicating early information concerning an event which had attracted the public notice: and being drawn up in a hasty manner, it required many correction'.

This full account of the voyage, then, includes a slightly altered version of Bligh's own account of the mutiny, which had been published two years earlier. This extended and revised text makes this the fundamental published account of the Bounty saga, and an important eighteenth-century document of Pacific voyaging, most especially for the second phase of European relations with Tahiti.

This is a particularly good copy of this great book, with almost none of the browning common to many copies, in a most attractive binding.
Ferguson, 125; Hill, 135; Kroepelien, 93; O'Reilly-Reitman, 550; Sabin , 5910; Spence, 'Bligh', p.4; Wantrup, 62a.

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