A New Voyage round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26.

London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley,, 1830. Russian exploration in the North Pacific, including Hawaii and Alaska First edition in English, certainly not common, and copies in the original boards, of which this is a particularly attractive example, especially so. Kotzebue's second voyage to the Pacific provided "reliable evidence of the potential strategic and economic value of the Northwest region of North America" (Hill). The original Russian edition of 1828 is described by Lada-Mocarski as "of great rarity". "In 1823 Kotzebue was commissioned to undertake a second voyage to the North Pacific. His instructions were to protect the Russia American Company from foreign fur-poachers and also to carry out scientific investigations... After visiting Rio de Janeiro and rounding Cape Horn, Kotzebue visited Chile, Tahiti, the Radak and Society islands, and reached Petropavlovsk in July 1824. The coast of Kamchatka was charted in detail before sailing for New Archangel and along the coast of California as far as the Russian settlement at Fort Ross. He then proceeded to the Hawaiian Islands... [before sailing] south to the Marianas, the Philippines and New Caledonia, and by way of St Helena reached Kronstadt on 10 July 1826" (Howgego). At a geopolitical level, British interest was naturally piqued by Russian activity in the Pacific Northwest and Hill points out that upon publication this book "alarmed some Englishmen". The Russo-American Treaty of 1824 had allowed Russian claims on the Pacific Northwest, known to the Americans as the Oregon Country, while the 1825 Anglo-Russian Treaty of Saint Petersburg defined the boundaries between Russian America and British claims and possessions along the Pacific coast. Two volumes, octavo. Original blue-grey boards, greyish-brown paper spines with labels, untrimmed. Stipple and line engraved frontispiece to each vol., by Samuel Freeman, engraved plan (Matauri Bay, New Zealand) and 2 folding charts (Navigators' Islands, Samoa, and Ratak and Ralik chain of islands). Light silverfishing to spines with some loss of surface fabric, early manuscript note to label of vol. I, scattered pinhead worming (not extending to text), sporadic foxing, occasional lightly pencilled magnolia in French. A very good fresh copy, with the terminal advertisement leaf at the end of both volumes, and in each, loosely inserted, a 4-page contemporary flyer for the Parisian circulating library of the French, English and American Library News Rooms, rue Neuve Saint Augustin. Forbes 759; Hill 947; Howes 259; Howgego II K21; Lada-Mocarksi 93 (first ed. in Russian); Sabin 38288; Wickersham 6207.