Books and Manuscripts

The First American Book on Hawaii 

“On the 26th of November we discovered land 2 degrees east of Attowai, which we afterwards found to be an island called by the natives Hawyhee or Owyhee”

Ledyard, John
A Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, and in Quest of a North-West Passage, Between Asia & America; Performed in the Years 1776, 1777, 1778, and 1779…
Hartford: Printed and sold by Nathaniel Patten, 1783. First edition. Small 8vo. 208 pp. Without extremely rare folding map (as usual). Period style full brown tree calf, red morocco spine label, stamped in gilt, boards slightly bowed; all edges trimmed; soiling and dampstaining to front and rear endpapers; soiling and dampstaining to title-page, closed tear in upper gutter of same; soiling and foxing to prelims and text; scattered shallow dampstaining in some edges; small repair in bottom gutter, H2, and bottom corner of Bb4. Evans 17998; Howes L-181; Sabin 39691; Hill 991; Forbes I, 52; Lada-Mocarski 36; Reese, Best of the West 14

First edition of the first American book on Hawaii and the northwest coast of America. Ledyard (1751-89) was an adventurer from New England who enlisted in the British marines in 1776 and joined Captain James Cook's third and final voyage to the Pacific. One of a few Americans onboard the Resolution during the expedition, he was one of the oarsmen who took Captain Cook ashore at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, and who later witnessed his death at the hands of the island's natives. As usual, upon the expedition's return to England all crew were ordered to surrender their journals, including Ledyard who kept a diary. Later, while back home in Connecticut, Ledyard was persuaded by his family to rewrite his journal from memory which became this book. It is believed to be partially based on John Rickman's anonymous 1781 account of the same voyage, but includes information not in Rickman's work or elsewhere. Ledyard's first edition was published more than a year before the official London narrative of Cook's expedition, and was "the first original narrative of a Pacific voyage to be published in the United States" (Reese).

This copy is without the extremely rare folding frontispiece map, as usual. As Forbes explains, “due to the erratic nature of American printing of the period, it may well be that the map was not produced until the work was well under way, or that it cost extra to purchasers, as some copies examined show no evidence that it was ever present.” (p. 44)