A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. PERFORMED IN THE YEARS 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788...TO WHICH ARE ADDED, A VOYAGE FROM MANILLA TO CALIFORNIA, BY DON ANTONIO MAURELLE: AND AN ABSTRACT OF THE VOYAGE AND DISCOVERIES OF THE LATE CAPT. G. VANCOUVER

Boston: Printed for Joseph Bumstea, 1801. 333pp. Contemporary tree calf, rebacked in modern calf, ruled in gilt, gilt leather label. Corners and edges worn, boards moderately rubbed. Bookplate on front pastedown (see below). Moderate tanning, scattered foxing. Good plus. This copy bears the bookplate on the front pastedown of James Edge Partington (1854- 1930), the well-respected British anthropologist who was especially interested in Pacific island ethnology.

The rare first American edition of one of the most important Pacific voyages. The La Pérouse account was first published in Paris in French in 1797, and in English in 1798. This is one of the earliest Pacific voyages to appear in an American edition and, published much less modestly than the French and British editions, would have been the way the average American would have learned about La Pérouse's important surveys of the Pacific coast and his descriptions of native Americans there. This is also the first American version (although only a précis) of Vancouver's voyage, first published in London in 1798. The 1781 voyage of Spanish naval officer Francisco Antonio Mourelle (incorrectly spelled in this edition's title) went from the Philippines to the South Pacific, where he explored in the vicinity of New Guinea and the Tonga Islands before sailing to Mexico. Howes is inaccurate in his pagination of this edition, and the Hill copy contains a map that was added later. HILL 976. SABIN 38966. HOWES L93. FORBES 331. SHAW & SHOEMAKER 789. FERGUSON 333. KROEPELIEN 1331