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
THE SHARDELOES–NEBENZAHL COPY, IN THE PUBLISHER’S BOARDS
London: John Stockdale and George Goulding, 1789. First edition.
Quarto (12 3/8” x 9 13/16”, 316mm x 250mm): A4 a2 B-3C4 [A]-[E]4 [$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 the publisher’s blue drab boards (re-backed). All edges of the text-block untrimmed.
Re-backed. Wear at the extremities, particularly at the corners. Chips and loss at the head and tail, the front board starting at both ends. A little foxing and offsetting around the plates, but altogether a fresh example. Bookseller’s label (“Sold by T. Hookham, Stationer, Bookseller and Bookbinder. New Bond Street, Corner of Bruton Street.”) to the front paste-down, with “Shardeloes” in ink manuscript adjacent and the book-label of Kenneth Nebenzahl below.
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.
Shardeloes is a country house (with Robert Adam interiors) near Amersham in Buckinghamshire, built in the 1760’s for William Drake (1723–1796), who served in the House of Commons for fifty years. Given the placement of the house’s name, it seems likely that Drake bought the book directly from Thomas Hookham, whose shop at Bruton Street and New Bond St. (the intersection currently hosts Hermès, Burberry, Miu Miu and Balenciaga; his number at the time was 147, now Richard Green Gallery) was and is an eight-minute walk from Stockdale’s premises at 181 Piccadilly (now Fortnum & Mason). The library of Shardeloes was sold in two tranches, in the 1920’s and in the 1950’s.
Kenneth Nebenzahl (1927–2020) was a dealer of the highest order, specializing in maps. His 2012 Christie’s New York sale fetched some $11.6M (the present item was lot 105). Indeed, the Nebenzahl Lectures in the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library in Chicago (the first speaker was the great authority R.A. Skelton) are among the most important landmarks in the field.
Hill 1376; Howes P 497; Sabin 64389; Wagner, Northwest Coast 738.
Item #JLR0622
Price: $18,000