Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World…
Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World, during the years 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806 and 1807.
London: Henry Colburn, 1813.
Two volumes, quarto, xxi [3, blank] 362 [6, index]; [8] 386 [6, index] pp., with a frontispiece portrait, with 20 of 21 engraved plates (lacking the first plate to vol. 2), and a folding map. Half green morocco rather worn, neatly restored.
The first Russian circumnavigation of the globe
First edition in English. Langsdorff was a physician and naturalist on board the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe on the Neva under Krusenstern. He went around Cape Horn to Kamschatka, making stops at the Marquesas and Hawaii. At Kamschatka, he left the expedition and proceeded on the Maria with Nicolai Rezanov, a Russian official who was commissioned to study the Russian American Company in Alaska and to conduct trade negotiations with Japan. Langsdorff states that, though they were politely but firmly refused, their Japanese visit was "the most interesting part of our expedition", devoting nearly 100 pages to their stay at Nagasaki. In their spare time they constructed a Montgolfier-type balloon and made the first aerial ascent in Japan.
First edition in English. Langsdorff was a physician and naturalist on board the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe on the Neva under Krusenstern. He went around Cape Horn to Kamschatka, making stops at the Marquesas and Hawaii. At Kamschatka, he left the expedition and proceeded on the Maria with Nicolai Rezanov, a Russian official who was commissioned to study the Russian American Company in Alaska and to conduct trade negotiations with Japan. Langsdorff states that, though they were politely but firmly refused, their Japanese visit was "the most interesting part of our expedition", devoting nearly 100 pages to their stay at Nagasaki. In their spare time they constructed a Montgolfier-type balloon and made the first aerial ascent in Japan.
The narrative contains a lengthy record of their stay in the Marquesas, and a "fuller account of Sitka and the settlement of San Francisco than any other contemporary account" (Sabin). The plates include eight of the Marquesas, five of Japan, (two (of three) of Alaska and two of California.
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Cowan, pp. 282-3; Forbes, 'Hawaiian National Bibliography', 435; Hawaii One Hundred, 18; Hill, 969; Howes, L81; Judd, 101; Kroepelien, 708; Lada-Mocarski, 69 (of the 1812 German edition); O'Reilly-Reitman, 735.
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