Lot 53: Bligh, William

A Voyage to the South Sea Undertaken by Command of His Majesty, for the Purpose of Conveying the Bread-Fruit Tree to the West Indies in His Majesty's Ship the Bounty ... including an Account of the Mutiny on Board the Said Ship. London : Printed for George Nicol, 1792 4to (11 5/8 x 9 3/8 in.; 295 x 238 mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait by J. Condé after J. Russell, one engraved plate of breadfruit, 6 engraved maps and plans of which 5 folding; small tear in fore-margin of page 17, clean tear in fore-margin of page 103, some marginal foxing in frontispiece and offsetting to title from portrait, small rust spot in outer margin of quire R. 19 th -century maroon three-quarter calf; corners and backstrip worn. With: Bligh, William. Document signed ("Wm Bligh"), the lower portion of a larger page (now 7 ½ x 8 ¼ in.; 190 x 210 mm), being the signature and address of an order to the Master John Fryer "and two of the Master's Mates on board His Majesty's Armed Vessel Bounty," on board the Bounty at sea, 4 November 1787

Hill 1:27; Sabin 5910

PROPERTY OF VARIOUS OWNERS
First edition of the first official account of the Bounty expedition, including a revised version of Bligh's Narrative of the Mutiny (1790). The account was based on Bligh's journals but was probably ghost-written by Captain James Burney (brother of the novelist Frances Burney) and seen through the press under the auspices of Sir Joseph Banks while Bligh was away on his second breadfruit voyage. The signed document is part of an order (the content now gone) issued at the beginning of the famous voyage on arrival at Spithead on the south coast of England en route to Tahiti (noted on page 4 of A Voyage).