Description:
First English edition. Henry Colburn. London. 1828. 8vo. Title, xii, 428pp. Full marbled paper covered boards, 19th Century pseudo tree calf papier croisé pattern. Red spine label with gilt lettering and edge rules. Blue endpapers. Title page slightly toned. Lacking half-title. Rubbing to spine edges. A crisp copy of the rarer London first edition.In making a Papier Croisé, the final step required that the paper be lifted up and carefully moved while still wet. This caused the characteristic knotting in the design.
John Ledyard (1751-1789) American explorer and adventurer. Ledyard accompanied Cook on the third and final voyage 1776-1780. Visiting the Sandwich Islands, Cape of Good Hope, the Prince Edward Islands off South Africa, the Kerguelen Islands, Tasmania, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Tahiti, and then Hawaii. It continued to the northwest coast of North America, making Ledyard perhaps the first U.S. citizen to touch its western coast, along the Aleutian islands and Alaska into the… Read More