Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Lot 2014

BLIGH, WILLIAM. 1754-1817.

11 June 2008, 13:00 EDT
New York

Sold for US$13,200 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

BLIGH, WILLIAM. 1754-1817.

A Narrative of the Mutiny on Board His Majesty’s Ship Bounty; and the Subsequent Voyage of Part of the Crew, in the Ship’s Boat, from Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch Settlement in the East Indies. London: for George Nicol, 1790. iv, 88 pp. Four engraved plates, all but one of which are folding. 4to (289 x 234 mm). Period full speckled brown sheep. Light paste action affecting margins of preliminary and final leaves, one plate misfolded, some faint spotting, light offset from plates, closed tear to one plate, covers with some rubbing, joints cracked, spine dry, but a generously-margined copy.

First edition of “Captain Bligh’s own account of the mutiny, one of the most remarkable incidents in the whole of maritime history" (Hill). Bligh and 18 others were set adrift on an open boat after being overpowered by the mutinous crew of the H.M.S. Bounty lead by the master’s mate, Fletcher Christian. Bligh and his mates suffered hunger, thirst, and storms through almost 4,000 miles of travel when they reached Timor in the East Indies. Hill p 26; Sabin 5908a.
Provenance: Bookplate of the Earl of Minto, Governor of Canada, to front pastedown.
See illustration.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Presentation Copy of Kennedy's First Book to Spencer Tracy. Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963. Why England Slept. New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1940.

Signed to Spencer Tracy 1952 Hemingway, Ernest. 1899-1961. The Old Man and the Sea, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.

CORNELIUS, MATTHEWS, editor. 1817-1889. The Enchanted Moccasins and Other Legends of the American Indians.

CALEPINO, AMBROGIO. 1435-1511. [Dictionarium.] Calepinus Ad librum. Mos est putidas.... Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, January 3, 1509.

HEARN, LAFCADIO. 1850-1904. [Japanese Fairy Tales.] Philadelphia: Macrae-Smith, [But Tokyo: T. Hasegawa,] [c.1931].

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. 1899-1961. PUTNAM, SAMUEL, translator. Kiki's Memoirs. Paris: Sign of the Black Manikin, 1930.