Beschreibung:

KOTZEBUE, Otto Von (1787-1846). A New Voyage round the World, in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26 . London: Samuel Bentley for Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley 1830. 2 volumes, 12°. 2 engraved frontispieces and 3 maps, 2 folding, advertisement leaves at the end of both volumes (some occasional foxing, maps offset). 20th-century calf, boards with blind ropework borders, spines gilt in compartments, gilt morocco lettering-piece in one. FIRST ENGLISH EDITION of Kotzebue's third circumnavigation for the Tsar, for the purpose of protecting Russian American Company interests on the Pacific Northwest coast against foreign fur traders. He sailed from Kronstadt for Brazil, doubled the Horn and continued his explorations of Polynesia before making his way north, explorations he had begun with Krusenstern in 1803-06 and on his own voyage in 1815-18. The work is as important to Alaska and California as it is to Polynesia, and his accounts of Sitka, the new Russian settlement at Ross, and the San Francisco Bay region are heightened by criticism of the harsh treatment of California Indians and of Polynesians by missionaries. On his previous voyage he had been equally critical of Russian treatment of the Alaska Indians. The English translation caused alarm in England as it indicated a growing Russian presence in the American northwest. Hill 947; Sabin 38288; Kropelien 675; cf. Lada-Mocarski 93 (Russian edition). (2)