BELCHER, Edward

Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, Performed in her Majesty's Ship Sulphur during the Years 1836-1842. Including Operations in China, from Dec. 1840, to Nov. 1841 London, Henry Colburn, 1843. 2 volumes in-8 (234 x 145 mm) with a steel-engraved frontispiece, XXXVIII pp., 1 f.n.c., 387 pp. 7 steel engravings for volume I; steel-engraved frontispiece, VI pp., 1 f.n.c., 474 pp. 10 steel engravings, 3 folding plates inserted in a pocket at the end of volume II. Navy blue percaline decorated with blindstamp (modern binding using the original cloth). Ferguson, 3564; Forbes, 1377; O'Reilly, 929; Hill, 102; Howes, B-318; Lada-Mocarski, 117. Sabin, 4390. First edition of this account of the circumnavigation on the ship Sulphur under the command of Captain Sir Edward Belcher between 1836 and 1842, 'an important surveying voyage to the Pacific' (Forbes). Belcher took command of the ship after Captain Beechey fell ill in Valparaiso. The expedition had been sent to survey the Pacific coast of North and South America and the Pacific basin. "The various harbors along the coast of California and northwest to Alaska were surveyed, and a month's journey in open boats was made up the Sacramento River from San Francisco Bay. The Hawaiian Islands, the Marquesas, the Society Islands, the Tonga Islands, the New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands, New Guinea, etc., were visited" (Hill). This book is also an important text for the First Opium War, because after visiting several island groups in the Pacific, Belcher arrived in Singapore in 1840. He was ordered to return to China after the war began, and in the years that followed he was engaged in operations on the Canton River. A well-completed copy of the 19 steel-engraved plates (2 frontispieces and 17 plates) as well as the 3 folding maps. "One of the most attractive of all nineteenth-century views of Honolulu is found in volume I" (Forbes). Modern binding with the original percaline mounted. Wet stamp of the Bibliothèque géographique Hachette on each title.