Lot 6089: [BOWDITCH, NATHANIEL. 1773-1838.]

MOORE, JOHN HAMILTON. The New Practical Navigator; being an Epitome of Navigation.... Newburyport: Edmund M. Blunt, 1799.
8vo (201 x 123 mm). xii, [13]-574, [2], [2] ad pp. Numerous engraved plates and illustrations in-text. Period calf rebacked. Title page soiled and tipped at bound margin with linen tape, some old dampstaining, leaves toned, spotting and staining throughout, a few leaves chipped at margins, corners worn.
Provenance: Joseph Dimmick (ink stamp at head of title, a few penciled annotations within).

FIRST AMERICAN AND FIRST BOWDITCH EDITION. Moore's Practical Navigator was into its thirteenth edition when Bowditch and others were engaged by Edmund Blunt to make corrections for this first American edition. Bowditch further revised the text for a second edition of 1800, and by the time the third American edition was ready, the work had been revised so substantially that Blunt published it as The New American Practical Navigator, with Bowditch as author. Bowditch's text would become the standard navigational text in the nineteenth century.
Bowditch is not named on the title page of the present volume, instead his contribution is acknowledged in the preface.