A Voyage Round the World; but more particularly to the north-west coast of America: performed in 1785, 1786, 1787, and 1788, in The King George and Queen Charlotte, Captains Portlock and Dixon. Embellished with twenty copper-plates. Dedicated, by permission, to His Majesty
THE FIRST COMMERCIAL VOYAGE TO THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
London: John Stockdale and George Goulding, 1789. First edition.
Quarto (11 13/16” x 9 ¼”, 301mm x 236mm): 2 binder’s blanks, A4 a2 B-3C4 [A]-[E]4, 2 binder’s blanks [$2 signed; –A1, a2]. 218 leaves, pp. i-vii (title, blank, 3pp. dedication, directions to the binder, contents) viii-xii, 1 2-384, 2i 2ii-xl. With 20 engravings: 14 plates and 6 folding charts.
Bound in contemporary calf (re-backed, with the original back-strip laid down) with a gilt fillet border. On the spine, 5 raised bands. Author and title gilt to black sheep in the second panel. Gilt fillet to the edges of the boards and to the turn-ins. Marbled end-papers. All edges of the text-block sprinkled blue. Green silk marking-ribbon.
Re-backed (quite discreetly), with the original back-strip laid down. Corners strengthened. Heavily rubbed (and recently treated with Cellugel) with some wear at the hinges. Foxing and offsetting at the plates, but altogether quite a clean, square copy with tidily-folded plates. Long repaired tear to AA3.
The King George’s Sound Company (a k a Richard Cadman Etches and Co.) was established in 1785 to oversee British commercial activity (particularly fur trading) with the Pacific Northwest, which was mapped and described by Captain Cook. Nathaniel Portlock (1748-1817) was on Cook’s third and final voyage, and so before commanding his own ship had practical experience of the Pacific and of the American Northwest. Portlock commanded the King George and George Dixon (1748–1795) the Queen Charlotte, setting out in early 1785 across the Atlantic, round Cape Horn (the southern tip of South America) and then up to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and finally up toward Alaska, before finally sailing back to England via Macao and the Cape of Good Hope in 1787, arriving in early 1788.
Portlock’s Voyage is therefore the first account of the Pacific Northwest through a practical commercial lens, refining and fleshing out the account of Cook — including, interestingly, a new account of the death of Cook as told by a Hawaiian — for curious speculators back in Britain. In addition to maps and views, there are several natural history plates (particularly of birds), indicating a growing English fascination with illustrated ornithological books.
Hill 1376; Howes P 497; Sabin 64389; Wagner, Northwest Coast 738.
Item #JLR0621
Price: $12,000