Library is Treasure Trove of S. Pacific Exploration History Enthusiasts of Pacific exploration are eagerly awaiting a sale of 260 lots of extraordinarily rare books and manuscripts from a library devoted to the subject of Hawaiian and South Pacific history. To
Enthusiasts of Pacific exploration are eagerly awaiting a sale of 260 lots of extraordinarily rare books and manuscripts from a library devoted to the subject of Hawaiian and South Pacific history. To be presented on April 6th at the New York galleries of international auctioneers, Bonhams, the highly anticipated sale boasts everything from famed expedition narratives to documents pertaining to one of the first stock market crashes.
Undoubtedly one of the most coveted of these lots is an excessively rare Congressional copy of Charles Wilkes’ record of his famed 1838-1842 South Seas expedition. The expedition was launched by the United States Congress to “announce America’s scientific coming of age” and marks the first U.S. governmental sponsorship of a large-scale scientific endeavour. In keeping with its mission, the expedition included naturalists, botanists, a mineralogist, taxidermists, artists and a philologist. Specimens gathered by expedition scientists became the foundation for collections of the Smithsonian Institution and as a result of their work, significant contributions were made to the fields of geology, botany, conchology, anthropology, and linguistics.
With 64 engraved plates, 9 double-page maps, as well as over 250 woodcut and steel engraved text illustrations, the copy to be offered at auction is one of only 100 to have been printed and one of just 75 copies which survived the 1851 Library of Congress fire. Further elevating its rarity is the fact that it is the copy presented to Commander Charles Wilkes himself, its bookplate reading "Presented by the Congress of the United States to Captain Chas. Wilkes, US Navy, Commanding Expedition”.
Stretching to five volumes in its original binding and extensively illustrated, this truly historic lot is estimated at $30,000-50,000.
Also of great interest to historians and collectors is a Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage to the Pacific.
Cook is celebrated for having made the first European contact with the Hawaiian Islands and the eastern coastline of Australia as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand. Accounts of his voyages to the islands of the Pacific and his descriptions of their exotic inhabitants made him a star of his period. His third voyage, during which he lost his life, made him the stuff of legend. To be offered is an account of Cook’s final voyage that pre-dates the official London account. Written by John Ledyard of Hartford, CT - a corporal aboard Cook’s vessel the Resolution and the only American crew member to record his memories - the journal includes details of the voyage not available elsewhere.
Annotated with numerous corrections and made even more desirable as it was originally the property of Ledyard's first cousin and is most likely a presentation copy to a good friend, the lot is estimated at $25,000-35,000.
This is not the only lot of interest stemming from Cook’s explorations. Estimated at $4,000-6,000 is one of the silver-plated medals originally commissioned to be distributed as gifts on Cook’s second voyage. Also from an archive of letters, maps, sketches, and artifacts is a cannonball likely fired
