A VOYAGE TO THE SOUTH-SEAS, IN THE YEARS 1740-1. A Faithful Narrative of the Loss of His Majesty's Ship the Wager on a Desolate Island in Latitude 47, South, Longitude 81:40 West... The Whole Compiled by Persons Concerned in the Facts Related... Late Gunner and Carpenter of the Wager.

London: Printed for Jacob Robinson, 1743. First edition, the first of the two issues of 1743, being the issue printed by Robinson with the author's names stated. With a number of attractive woodcut headpieces and initials. 8vo (190 x 120 mm), especially well bound in very handsome contemporary full polished brown calf, the boards framed with double-ruled gilt, edges hatched in blind, the spine finely gilt decorated with elaborate detailed tooling in five compartments between wide gilt ruled and hatched raised bands, a sixth compartment with red morocco label ruled and lettered in gilt, additional gilt at the tips and along the joints. With the engraved bookplate of Lord de Saumarez, an admiral of the British Royal Navy, notable for his victory at the Second Battle of Algeciras. Saumarez is one of the true historical figures to appear in C. S. Forester's Hornblower novels, being celebrated in two of the novels. Saumarez's fictional alter-ego also plays a role in two of the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian. Now housed in a handsome cloth clamshell box with morocco label, gilt. xx, 220 pp. A very handsome and well preserved copy, the text clean, crisp, and unpressed, the handsome binding solid and sturdy with a some expert and accomplished restoration along the joints and a bit of touching up to the corners. In all a fine copy with excellent Naval provenance. RARE AND TRUE FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE WITH FINE MARITIME PROVENANCE, OF ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTS OF THE LOSS OF H.M.S. WAGER; ONE OF THE MOST COMPELLING NAVAL ACCOUNTS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
This narrative is the exciting mutineers' side of the story of the loss of the Wager to inhospitable climate on one of the world's most remote and dangerous coastlines beyond the Straits of Magellan. When Commodore Anson set out for the Pacific in 1740, to attack the Spanish ships on the Chilean coast, he took eight ships with him. The Wager was effectively a transport ship, carrying stores and a force of marines; as the squadron rounded Cape Horn in fearsome weather, she was unable to keep up with the rest of them, and with her gear wrecked by the storm, was driven ashore on the Patagonian coast. This tale of mutiny, hardship and tenacity that ensued was told by the survivors, especially John Bulkeley, leader of those who repudiated the captain's authority. Bulkeley, the ship's carpenter, and Cummins led their small group of survivors until their landing at Rio de Janeiro and finally England, concluding a voyage that had lasted almost two years. Another narrative was published by John Byron, then a midshipman, who remained with Captain Cheap. Of Cheap's group only three members, Cheap, Byron and one other, eventually reached home, but by a different overland route.
This voyage was the basis for Patrick O'Brian's historical work 'The Unknown Shore', written before he embarked on the Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin novels.