May 24, 2007 - Sale 2116

Sale 2116 - Lot 89

Price Realized: $ 21,600
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
[MARRA, JOHN.] Journal of the Resolution's Voyage, In 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775. On Discovery to the Southern Hemisphere. Folding map, 5 engraved plates, plus an extraneous single-page map titled "Part of the Tropical Discoveries of the Resolution Sloop" facing page 119. 8vo, contemporary calf, expertly rebacked with the original gilt extra backstrip, minor wear; folding map with a few extraneous creases and minor short edge tears along the left margin, very small worm hole in the lower margin of the first few signatures (without loss to any text). London: F. Newberry, 1775
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first edition of a second voyage rarity. Marra served as the gunner's mate aboard the Resolution during Cook's important Second Voyage. His account of the first crossing of the Antarctic Circle preceded the official account by eighteen months -- making it the first eyewitness account of the antarctic regions. Copies with the extraneous single-page map originally published in Gentleman's Magazine, as the one found here, are very much the exception.
"Upon Cook's return to England in 1775, the public eagerly awaited news of the voyage. The Admiralty directed that no account be published but the official one, but the financial promise from a preemptive publication was not lost on some of the expedition's men . . . The book is based on extracts from Marra's journal and contain facts not found in Cook's [1777 official] account"--Rosove 214.A1; Spence 758; Beddie 1270; Holmes 16; Hill 1087; Sabin 16247; Streeter Sale 2408.

From the library of Dr. John M. Levinson, with his bookplate.