NARRATIVE OF A TOUR THROUGH HAWAII, or, Owhyhee; with observations on the natural history of the Sandwich Islands,
and remarks on the manners, customs, traditions, history, and language of their Inhabitants. By William Ellis, Missionary from the Society and Sandwich Islands. Pp. [viii]+480, engraved frontispiece portrait and 8 plates, 2 text illustrations, 2 folding maps, facsimile signature, appendix on the Hawaiian language; demy 8vo; modern qr. leather [kangaroo?], decorated in gilt compartments, with the original gilt lettered titling labels laid on, early marbled boards and calf fore-corners, edges a trifle rubbed; bookplate of F. Ponsonby on both pastedowns, plus another owner's small book label on upper pastedown, the plates slightly foxed and with light water stains to margins, minor production (trimming) fault to bottom edge pages 435/6, a little light foxing; H. Fisher, Son, and P. Jackson, London, 1827. Second Edition, enlarged. Forbes 656; Hill 547, footnote; Taylor page 114. *Considerably enlarged from the first edition of 1826, and containing a plate not in that edition. 'The Narrative of English missionary William Ellis is particularly important, as it was the first book written about the Hawaiian Islands and the first serious notice of the islands since Captain Cook's discovery of them forty-eight years earlier. It may be called the first scientific book on Hawaii: although its main purpose was to report on mission progress, and Ellis was primarily interested in local manners and traditions, he was sufficiently expansive to include observations on such natural and cultural history topics as volcanoes, antiquities, and the anthropology of the islands' [Hill, page 191]. Ellis also set up the first printing press in the South Seas, printing the first Hawaiian book, a hymnal, in 1823. The bookplate in this volume is presumably that of a relative of Frederick 'Fritz' Edward Grey Ponsonby, First Baron Ponsonby. (It features an armorial device incorporated within 'Fritz' Ponsonby's much more elaborate bookplate. Several members of the Ponsonby family were named Frederick). Item #166260
Price: $2,000.00