KRUSENSTERN, Adam Johann von (1770-1846). Voyage Round the World. London, 1813. FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH.
2 volumes in one, 4to (280 x 212 mm). Directions to binder on half-sheet. 2 hand-colored aquatint frontispieces, engraved folding map. (Pale dampstain to upper margin, some minor pale spotting.) Contemporary russia heavily embossed with an intertwining key pattern and gilt (rebacked preserving original spine). Provenance: W. Lennox Conyngham (armorial bookplate, and signature dated 1819). FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF THE FIRST RUSSIAN CIRCUMNAVIGATION, commanded by Krusenstern with an impressive corps of officers: Lisianski (second-in-command), Langsdorff, Rezanov and Kotzebue, all of whom published important works on their own voyages. Although Imperially sponsored, the voyage was paid for by the Russian American Company. Kruzenstern's orders were to attempt to "open relations with Nippon and the Sandwich Islands, to facilitate trade in South America, to examine California for a possible colony, and make a thorough study and report of the Northwest coast, its trade and future." He also obtained furs from the Pacific Northwest to trade for Chinese goods. Kruzenstern's voyage was important for its discoveries in and accurate charting of the North Pacific and the Northwest coast of America. The introduction discusses the state of Russian trade and commerce in the 18th century and includes an account of earlier Russian voyages to the North Pacific. The voyage from Cronstadt took them around Cape Horn into the Pacific where they surveyed the Marquesas and Hawaii before crossing to Kamchatka, Japan and China. In Hawaii, the ships commanded by Langsdorff and Lisianski sailed for the Northwest Coast, reaching Kodiak in 1804 and calling at all the Russian trading ports in Alaska while Kruzenstern remained in Japan to open Russian trade. When this English edition was published, Krusenstern objected to Richard Hoppner's sometimes-inaccurate translation. Arctic Bibliography 9381; Cordier Japonica 459; Hill 952; Kroepelien 693; see Lada-Mocarski 61 (Russian edition); Sabin 38331.
