A Voyage Round the World, In the Years MDCCXI, I, II, III, IV, By George Anson
London: John and Paul Knapton, 1749. Fifth Edition. 4to, 11 1/4 x 8 3/4 in. (286 x 222 mm); pp. title (blank v.) + xx + 417. Illustrated with folding frontispiece map (A Chart, | shewing | The Track of the Centurion | Round the WORLD), and an additional forty-two copper-plate engravings (almost all folding), and a final leaf of directions to the bookbinder. Slightly later boards, gold tooled calf binding, scuffed; 5 raised bands and gilt decorations and titling in 6 compartments; edges speckled red. Printed on heavy laid paper with large margins (maps on heavier paper); interior has typical light uniform tanning. Pages and plates are clean with occasional offsetting to plates but generally dark strong impressions; map at p. 96 torn, map at 236 torn and repaired on verso, map at p. 385 has a small tear.
Title page: A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD, In the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV. BY GEORGE ANSON, Esq; Now LORD ANSON, Commander in Chief of a Squadron of His Majesty’s Ships, sent upon an Expedition to the South-Seas. Compiled from his PAPERS and MATERIALS, By RICHARD WALTER, M. A. Chaplain of his Majesty’s Ship the Centurion, in that Expedition. Illustrated with Forty-Two COPPER-PLATES. The Fifth Edition. LONDON: Printed for the AUTHOR; By John and Paul Knapton, in Ludgate-Street. MDCCXLIX.
[Sabin 1626; Cox 1748 vol1, p.49; ESTC T74545; Borba de Moraes, p.38, Hill I, pp. 317-318].
"Perhaps the most popular maritime exploration of the 18th century" [Sabin 1626]. Our copy has NO MISSING PLATES or MAPS which is not common.
This is the official account of Anson's adventurous and troubled four-year circumnavigation of the globe. In 1740 England was at war with Spain and equipped six warships and two merchant vessles with 1900 men, many of whom were untrained and unprepared for such a voyage, under the command of Commodore George Hanson to harass the Spaniards on the western coast of South America, thus cutting off Spanish supplies from the Pacific Area. From the outset the voyage was fraught with problems, sickness and deaths among the crew, attacks by Spanish ships that had received word of the expedition, storms, flawed navigation charts, mutinies, but also with the successful capture of a Spanish galleon off the coast of the Philippines which yielded an immense treasure of over 34 tons of silver. After a brief pause in Canton, Anson started his voyage back to England in December 1743, rounding the Cape of Good Hope in April and arriving in England in June 1744, where he was richly rewarded for the capture of such a lavish treasure.
Although several private journals of the voyage had been published, the official version of events was published in London 1748, as "A Voyage Round the World...". It was a great popular and commercial success and a 5th edition was already in print by 1749. As well as detailing the adventures of the expedition, it contained a huge amount of useful information for future navigators and with 42 detailed charts and engravings, most based on drawings by Capt. Piercy Brett, it laid the basis for later scientific and survey expeditions by Captain Cook and others. The final words from the authorized account are: «Thus was this expedition finished, when it had lasted three years and nine months, after having, by its event, strongly evinced this important truth: That though prudence, intrepidity, and perseverance united are not exempted from the blows of adverse fortune, yet in a long series of transactions they usually rise superior to its power, and in the end rarely fail of proving successful.».
Condition: Very good.
Item number: 52
Price: $3,000.00
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