James Wilson - A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean - 1799

WILSON, James. A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, Performed in the Years 1796, 1797, 1798, in the Ship Duff, Commanded by Captain James Wilson. London: Printed by S. Gosnell, for T. Chapman, 1799. 4to.

First edition, Gosnell printing, of an important early account of the Pacific and one of the principal records of the pioneering voyage of the Duff under Captain James Wilson for the London Missionary Society. The voyage resulted in the establishment of missionary stations in Tahiti, Tonga and the Marquesas.

Compiled from the journals of the officers and missionaries who took part in the expedition, the work combines a detailed maritime narrative with extensive observations on the peoples and societies encountered in the South Pacific. Accounts of customs, religious practices, dwellings, political organisation and everyday life give the book considerable ethnographical and historical interest.

The preliminary discourse surveys the geography and history of the South Sea islands, while the appendix contains a more detailed account of the natural and civil state of Tahiti.

The book is also of particular interest for its connection with the mutiny on the Bounty. The preliminary discourse and the Tahiti appendix draw upon the then-unpublished narrative of James Morrison, one of the pardoned Bounty mutineers.

The large Pacific chart is additionally notable for its early use of the geographical names “Greater Australia” and “Lesser Australia.”

The present copy is the preferred Gosnell printing, one of two distinct 1799 printings issued for T. Chapman, the other being printed by T. Gillet. The Gillet printing was produced from a different setting and on smaller paper.

Pagination: [12], c, 420, [12] pp., with 13 engraved plates/maps, including 7 maps and charts, 5 of them folding, and 6 engraved plates.

Dimensions: approx. 30 × 23 cm.

Bound in full tan calf, attractively rebacked with the original richly gilt spine laid down.

Bibliographical references: ESTC T87461; Ferguson 301; Hill, p. 184.