A voyage round the world, in the years 1803, 4, 5, & 6; performed, by order of His Imperial Majesty Alexander the First, Emperor of Russia, in the ship Neva
London: S. Hamilton for John Booth and Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown; 1814. First edition in English.
Quarto (10 5/8” x 8 3/8”, 271mm x 213mm): a4 b-c4 B-3C4 3D2 [$2 signed]. 206 leaves, pp. i-v vi-xxi [3] (blank, list of the crew, directions to the binder) 1 2-388. With 14 engravings: a portrait frontispiece, 8 maps (all hand-colored in full) of which 3 are folding, 2 hand-colored aquatint-engraved views and 3 plates.
Bound in sprinkled calf, on the spine five raised bands. Title gilt to red morocco in the second panel. Armorial supralibros gilt of the Society of Writers to His Majesty’s Signet.
Rubbed at the extremities, with some losses, especially on the rear board (rodent). Preliminaries (quires a-c) reinserted with Japanese paper. Some peripheral tanning throughout, and along the top edge of the folding world map. Offsetting at the plates, largely to the tissue guards (all present except for the chart of the Washington Islands (p. 60)). ALS from Robert Lynn Batts Tobin laid in. Shelf-label completed in graphite (“25 : h : 22”) to the front paste-down, obscuring an earlier ink manuscript shelf-mark. In ownership inscription of the Signet Society (“Ex lib:/ Bibl. Scribar: Sig: Reg:/ 1815”) to the recto of the front free end-paper, repeated in fainter ink on the recto of the portrait frontispiece, albeit dated 1814.
Urey Lisiansky (1773–1837) was a Russian explorer and naval officer who, after a successful naval career, became the captain of the first Russian circumnavigation. This rare first edition in English is an account of that trip, which took three years to complete, from 1803 to 1806. The work gives Lisiansky’s accounts of the locations he visited, particularly Alaska and China. The voyage contained two ships, one of which, the Nadezhda, went to Japan to try and establish diplomatic ties, whereas Lisiansky’s ship, the Neva, sailed north to Russian America (modern Alaska). Lisiansky and the Neva landed at Sitka, where the crew took part in a war against the Alaska Natives, which ended in a Russian victory and increased Russian control of the territory. After wintering in Alaska, the voyage discovered multiple islands in the Pacific, including one named Lisianski Island.
The voyage continued through to Canton (now Guangzhou), in China, where an attempt was made to start fur-trading. This was largely a failure, but soon the two ships reunited, and then returned to Europe. Once the voyage had concluded, the European public was fascinated by it, leading to the publication of many books. Adam Johann von Krusenstern, the captain of the Nadezhda, published his account of the voyage in 1812, but this book, published by Lisiansky in 1814, was the one that gained popularity. After originally being published in Russian, Lisiansky himself translated the work into English and had it published in London.
The Society of Writers to His Majesty’s Signet was established at the end of the XVIc in Scotland, and originally conferred on its members — solicitors (lawyers) having being called “writers” in Scotland — the right to apply the king’s seal (a signet ring) to legal documents. The Signet Library is one of the great neoclassical buildings in Edinburgh, opened in 1822 (the same year as the present work began to be issued). It was, in the second quarter of the XIXc, one of the greatest private libraries in the United Kingdom. Their collections were mostly disbursed at a series of sales by Sotheby’s in 1960.
Robert Lynn Batts Tobin (1934–2000), a San Antonio businessman, has written a letter (to “Gilbert,” dated simply “Monday”) on headed paper, which is laid in “Gilbert: Warren claims that this is ‘tres recherché.’ I hope that he is Right!* To say that I never spent a more marvelous two weeks than those in the Islands would be a serious understatement. I never felt better, ate better or was better entertained. My thanks go to you and (?)Alaakwa. As always R.L.B.T <*>If he wasn’t, ship it back to him for an exchange. We spent hours discussing it, but I don’t really trust one Warren Howell. R.” Warren R. Howell presided over John Howell Books in San Francisco, at 434 Post St., and was one of the leading figures of American bookselling in the XXc.
Hill 1026; Sabin 41416.
Catalogued by Jonah Kramer.
Item #JBK0018
Price: $25,000