BLIGH, William, A Voyage to the South Sea, undertaken by command of His Majesty, For the purpose of conveying the bread-fruit tree to the West Indies, in his Majesty’s ship the Bounty. Commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh. Including an account of the mutiny on board the said ship, 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. The whole illustrated with charts, &c. Published by the permission of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. , George Nicol, Bookseller to his Majesty, Pall Mall., 1792

Large 4to. x; 264pp. Handsomely rebound in a modern, full leather binding. Blind stamped borders and detail to the front and back covers. Red label with gilt title and date to spine. Five raised bands with additional blind-stamped detailing. Complete with 7 engraved plates, 5 of which are folding. Lacking the engraved frontispiece portrait of Bligh. Ex-library with a number of discrete stamps throughout, in particular on the reverse of each plate. Please note the plates themselves are unmarked. Additionally, a library catalogue stamp can be found on the title page’s verso. A degree of foxing to the preliminaries and plates. Additionally, an imprint has been left by each plate on their opposite page. This is due to the differing qualities in the paper used in the book’s production. Whilst the quality of the paper used for the main text block was very high, the quality of the paper used for the plates was lesser, as such after 230 years some unobtrusive staining is evident. The first and fourth plate have been expertly restored where previously they had torn. Though it should be noted that this has been done to such a degree of skill that the repairs are only evident by the presence of a small amount of transparent binder’s tape on the reverse. Additionally, there remains a small tear along one fold of the fourth plate, though it is neat, closed and in no way obscures the content. The text is bright, clean and complete. The plates, notwithstanding the aforementioned minor faults, are in very good condition. First edition of Bligh’s own full account of his voyage which led to the most famous mutiny in the history of the sea. Preceded two years earlier in 1790 by a shorter, somewhat hastily prepared Narrative of The Mutiny. The advertisement in the present volume explains that “the reason of the Narrative appearing first, was for the purpose of communicating early information concerning an event which attracted the public notice: and being drawn up in a hasty manner, it required many corrections”. This is the first appearance of Bligh’s account of the entire expedition. “This full account of the voyage, then, includes a slightly altered version of Bligh’s own account of the mutiny, which had been published two years earlier. This extended and revised text makes this the fundamental published account of the Bounty saga ” (Parks Collection). Internally and externally a handsome example of an extremely important first edition.