COOK, Captain James (1728-1779) - John HAWKESWORTH (1715-1773, compiler) - Paul REVERE & Bernard ROMANS (engravers)
A New Voyage, Round the World, In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, and 1771; undertaken by order of his present Majesty, performed by, Captain James Cook, in the ship Endeavour, drawn up from his own journal, and from the papers of Joseph Banks
New York: printed by James Rivington, 1774. 2 volumes, octavo. (7 11/16 x 4 1/2 inches). 18pp. list of subscribers in vol.I, 6pp. publisher's advertisement for an edition of "Chesterfield's letters". 2 folding engraved frontispieces (one engraved by Paul Revere), 1 folding world map engraved by Bernard Romans.
Bound to style in half 18th century calf with 18th century marble paper boards, spine simply gilt in six compartments with morocco labels.
The very rare first American edition of Cook's First Voyage, with a plate engraved by Paul Revere and the first world map to be published in America
The first volume with 17 pages of subscribers' names, one of the longest lists of subscribers in any American book published before the Revolution. Complete copies of this American piracy are rarely seen on the market: only four copies are listed as having sold at auction in the past thirty years. It is a condensed version of the official London edition which had been published in England in 1773 in three quarto volumes. The London first edition also included a survey of earlier British voyagers in the Pacific, but the present work concentrates almost entirely on the narrative of Cook's voyage. The folding frontispiece to the first volume is by the Revolutionary hero, silversmith and engraver, Paul Revere. It is a version of plate 7 by F. Bartolozzi that is usually found facing p.265 in vol.II of the first English edition. According to Clarence Brigham, Revere worked from a reduced reversed version of this pIate published in The Town and Country Magazine (June, 1773, vol.V, p.313), a copy of which was sent to him by the publisher Rivington (via Henry Knox of Boston) in April 1774. Rivington asked that Revere engrave the image "with all the ability in his power and let it be done as soon as possible" (letter to Knox, dated 8 April 1774). The final result (about fifty per cent smaller than Bartolozzi's original) amply demonstrates the charming naïveté that is such a hallmark of Paul Revere's work. Revere's day book shows that he charged £4-0-0 for the plate (see 3 May 1774 entry) The folding map, as the Wheat & Brun number confirms, is the first World map to be published in America and is the work of another notable figure from the Revolutionary war: the military engineer, cartographer and engraver Bernard Romans. Romans intention was to show the track of Cook, Captain Wallis and Bougainville: most of the map is once again a reduced version of the original map, but in this case it also extends the area covered so that an image of the entire world is included, rather than just the "South Seas". It is bound in vol.I facing the first page of text, and is also the first American map to depict Australia "accurately". The folding frontispiece to the second volume is unsigned, but is a composite of two images that both originate with drawings by Sydney Parkinson, the official draughtsman/artist on the voyage. The image is divided in two vertically: the left side of the plate is of a New Zealander. The original of this image was eventually engraved by T. Charles and published in Parkinson's A Journal of a Voyage (London: 1784) facing p.88. The right side is of two Australian aboriginals. The original of this image was also engraved by T. Charles and in Parkinson's work opposite p.134. Unusually, we know where the paper used in this work came from: Rivington advertised the work on 20 October 1774. "These books are printed upon a paper fabricated by Mr. Christopher Leffingwell, of Norwich in Connecticut, with ink made in Boston, and every part of the labour effected by inhabitants of the city of New-York". The set was priced at 12 shillings half bound and 16 shillings full bound and lettered.
Beddie 656; Brigham Paul Revere's Engravings pp 102-105; L. Diamant Bernard Romans pp.29-30; Evans 13324; Holmes 9; Sabin 30936; Streeter Sale 2407; Wheat & Brun Maps and Charts Published in America before 1800 1.
Item #39090
Price: $22,500.00