Album with 45 Original Ink Drawings and 6 Albumen Photographs from Arden's Voyages Aboard HMS Boxer and HMS Druid to West Africa and the Caribbean, Including Historically Important Drawings of the Niger Punitive Expedition of 1877].

Ca. 1874-1878. Folio (ca. 32,5x28 cm). 38 card leaves (11 blank). With 45 ink drawings, including over twenty large ones, ca. 16x20 cm (6 ? x 7 ? in) and larger. With twelve ink drawn charts indicating the ships' tracks, from ca. 9x20,5 (3 ? x 7 ? in) to ca. 20,5x26,5 cm (8 x 10 ? in). Also with six albumen prints from ca. 9x12 cm (3 ? x 4 ? in) to ca. 18x23,5 cm (7 x 9 ? in), and a paper silhouette of a naval officer mounted in the end. The vast majority of the drawings signed, dated and titled on the lower margins. Original green full roan album by Henningsham & Hollis with raised bands, moire endpapers and all edges gilt. Engraved bookplate of Edward Arden on the first pastedown. Minor foxing of the album leaves, album rubbed on extremities, three drawings apparently removed. Otherwise a very good album with beautiful drawings. Beautiful album of ink drawings and original photos compiled by Royal Navy Lieutenant Edward H. Arden, with a firsthand visual account of the British Navy Niger Expedition of 1877. Arden was serving on HMS Boxer (A.H. Allington, Commander) which together with HMS Pioneer and HMS Avon carried out a punitive mission to the villages in the lower reaches of the Niger River in August 1877. The album contains five finely executed large panoramas of the Niger River villages Onitsha, Oko, Ndoni and the bombardment of the Emblana village by HMS Pioneer, Avon and Boxer on August 17, 1877 (two views). The other ink drawings related to HMS Boxer's service on the coast of West Africa include large panoramas of the Banana Creek (River Congo), St. Paul de Loanda, Sierra Leone (taken from a photo), and Point William (Fernando Po); smaller views of the Tenerife Island, St. Vincent (Cape Verde), Cape Coast Castle, Kinsembo, Accra, Christiansburg Castle, St. Helena, and others. There are also twelve charts showing the track of HMS Boxer from Plymouth (March 1877) to Madeira, St. Vincent, Sierra Leone, Cape Coast Castle, Lagos, Fernando Po, the Congo, St. Paul de Loando, St. Helena, Ascension Island and the Cape of Good Hope (autumn 1878). The first part of the album is dedicated to Arden's service on board HMS Druid in 1874-77. Among the drawings are a large view of HMS Druid leaving Sheerness in August 1874, panoramas of Funchal in Madeira, English Harbour in Antigua, Macaripe Cove in Trinidad, St. Thomas, Carlisle Bay in Barbados, Martinique; six beautiful views of St. Kitts (Basseterre, Milliken and Spencer House Estates, a picnic scene), small views of Dominica, Saba Island et al. There are also four ink drawings of Spain, one of a country house in England, and six large albumen prints, depicting HMS Black Prince, HMS Druid, two groups of the ship's company, one apparently including Arden (marked with a cross), the naval hospital at Port Royal, Jamaica, and a cemetery (apparently, also in Jamaica). Arden died of yellow fever in Kingston, Jamaica, on 9 August 1879, and is buried in the Old Naval Cemetery there (probably the last photograph shows his grave).