London: J. Snow, for the Author, 1837. Early printing (4th thousand), same year as the first, and the first printing to contain the Baxter portrait of the author. Original brown cloth decorated in blind, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, original grey endpapers. pp (xx), 590 + colour frontispiece portrait of Williams + folding map + 6 b&w plates; illustrated title page and 18 illustrations in the text (all plates present). Professionally rebacked, with original only lightly sunned spine laid down, inner cloth inner hinges; rubbing to inner margin of front free endpaper; horizontal crease to frontispiece; old pencil notes to verso of front free endpaper about the portrait and an ink note ("George Baxter" to the margin of the author's Preface to the Fourth Thousanda few small light spots on front cover; corner chip to pp 565-66 (no text affected); old pencil owner name on front pastedown; else a VG clean and unworn copy, attractive, not foxed. "A non-conformist missionary, Williams was sent by the London Missionary Society to the Society Islands in 1816. He traveled about the islands, converting the native populace to Christianity. He made his headquarters at Raiatea, but also visited the Cook Islands and discovered Rarotonga, where he sojourned for a considerable time. After his return to Raiatea, he set forth on the other voyages to Samoa, Tonga, and the neighboring islands.[Later he] sailed to the New Hebrides; while visiting the island of Erromanga, he was murdered by cannibals on November 20, 1839. These insights into missionary and native life are very important to a complete understanding of Pacific history" - HILL 1875. The pencil note at front states: "First portrait in colours by Baxter & drawn from life. The portrait was also sold as a separate print & it was this sale which first impressed upon Baxter the advantages of separate prints. (from Coutney Lewis print no. 71)". This book was one of the best and most popular accounts of missionary activity in the Pacific at the time.; Octavo

London / Edinburgh: Elliot and Ray / C. Elliot, 1789. Second and best edition, enlarged and corrected, of the first edition in English. Title page continues: " With fifteen dissertations on various subjects, relating to the antiquities, government, religion, manners, and natural history of Abyssinia. By M. [Joachim] Le Grand. Translated from the French by Samuel Johnson, LL.D. To which are added, various other tracts by the same author not published by Sir John Hawkins or Mr Stockdale". Octavo. pp [2, original blank], (4), 500, (2, ads), [2, original blank]. Bound in modern polished brown calf, spine with raised bands, gilt lettering, new cream endpapers. Ink owner names on verso of title; yellowing and moderate soiling throughout; light damp stain to lower inner corners and narrow light damp stain to fore margins of pp 409 to end; partial flaking to a few letters on spine; in all, VG+ externally, generally VG internally, tight in the binding, neither hinges nor joints cracked, both blanks and ads present >>> First published in 1735, this was Dr. Johnson's first work. Jerónimo Lobo, a Portuguese Jesuit, traveled to Lake Tana and the Blue Nile, reaching the province of Damot. He was the second European to describe the sources of the Blue Nile and was the leading European expert on Abyssinia / Ethiopia of his day. Like the other Jesuits, he was expelled from the country in 1648. This second edition includes a new preface by the editor, George Gleig, in which he attacks the numerous printer's errors in the 1735 edition. It also includes material not in that edition. The fourth Dissertation is about the mythical Christian ruler Prester John. There are seven "other tracts" by Johnson in the book. Courtney & Smith pp 2-4. (Old former owners' names are James Geddes, Thornhill, 1828, George Sutton, and Thomas Haggart. I believe these men were residents of Ontario.)

London & New York: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, no date [1870]. Octavo. Mauve pictorial bevel edge cloth stamped in black & gilt, brown endpapers. (ix), 312 pp + 16 pp Dec., 1871, publisher's catalogue. Numerous wood engravings in text, many full-page, tissue guard at frontispiece. Book a little leaned; spine a bit sunned, as always with this colour, with mild wear at spine tips and outer corners; small cloth hole to front hinge; cracked inner hinges neatly repaired with paper tape; light foxing to early and late; else a VG clean, tight and unworn copy, no previous owner names. The author and his fellow gold hunters visited Zululand and Matabeleland, and had an interview with a young Cetywayo (a vignette drawing appears at p. 140). Also an account of 200 Australian gold-diggers arriving at Durban, the bushmen, Kaffirs, hunting 'gators, buffalo, hippos and elephants, and more. Note: 1.5 kg parcel, extra shipping will be required.

Boston: Charles Ewer, 1820. Stated First American Edition. Octavo, pp (xxx), (31)-461 + frontispiece portrait (Mr Mariner in the Costume of the Tonga Islands) (lacking the tissue guard) and large folding map at p. (31). Four pages of words and music at rear. With the Preface to the second London edition (1818, with additions). Modern binding of quarter calf with spine label and gilt rules, marbled boards, new endpapers. Ink digits to upper outer corner of title page; yellowing and foxing to frontispiece and early leaves and to leaves adjacent to the folding map, only scattered foxing in text, text mostly without any foxing; creased nicks to upper edge of a few leaves at rear and a few small corner creases; externally fine, internally VG. First published in a two volume format by John Murray, London, 1818. This American edition doesn't have the Tongan grammar and vocabulary found in the London edition. "Mariner set sail in 1805 on a voyage to South America and the South Seas with two purposes -- whaling and attacking Spanish shipping. the crew mutinied in the Tonga Islands, but were murdered by the natives. Young Mariner was fortunate in being taken prisoner and adopted as the King's son. His work contains a very interesting account of contemporary life in Tonga, of the customs of the inhabitants and their inter-island wars and examples of Tonga songs and music...considered the best report of Tongan life and culture before the arrival of Christianity." - Hill

Philadelphia: Childs & Peterson, 1858. Early printing (first was 1856). Two volumes, tall octavo, original purplish brown cloth, sides decorated in blind, spines gilt lettered, dark brown endpapers. pp [2], 464, [2]; [2], 467, [3]; brown endpapers. Steel engraved frontispiece and engraved title, with tissue guard, in each volume. Volume I has a folding map at front, and 11 steel engraved plates with tissue guards, numerous vignette woodcut illustrations and one map in text. Volume II has 7 plates with tissue guards, one folding map at rear, numerous text illustrations. Spines and inner margins of sides sunned to tan; moderate wear to spine tips; 1860 pencil name to each front free endpaper; else a VG clean, tight and attractive pair, hinges not cracked. "Contains an account of the organization and course of the expedition based on 'passages of [Kane's] journal of interest to the general reader'; the voyage to Smith Sound, the wintering at Rensselaer Harbor on the north-west coast of Greenland, the making of observations, sledge journeys, explorations, surveys, etc.: notes upon the Eskimos, flora and fauna, Humboldt and other glaciers, ice, etc.; the abandonment of the Advance, and the partry's return fo Upernavik in small boats." - AB 8373. Kane had been the ship's surgeon on the First Grinnell Expedition in 1850 in search of Franklin and returned to try again, this time as commander. Sir John's fate was still not discovered and the expedition had in the end to abandon ship, but not without adding valuable information to knowledge of the Arctic. Note: 2.5 kg parcel, extra shipping will be required.