Item #303 [FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]. A. P. Sokolov.
[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]
[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]
[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]
[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]
[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]
[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]
[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]
[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]
[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]
[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]

[FIRST FULL ACCOUNT OF BERING’S EXPEDITION] Severnaya ekspeditsiya, 1733-1743 [i.e. Northern Expedition, 1733-1743]

St. Petersburg: 1851. Item #303

[2], ix, 271, [1] pp. Octavo. With five folding engraved maps at rear. Contemporary cloth binding with gilt lettered title on the spine. Occasional pencil markings in text, first free endpaper removed, spine mildly faded, but overall a very good copy in very original condition.

First edition. Very rare. This is a small print run offprint in book form from the extensive article first published in part IX of the important Russian journal Zapiski Gidrographicheskago Departamenta Morskago Ministerstva, Izdavayemye s Visochaishago Razresheniia (i.e. Notes of the Hydrographical Department of the Naval Ministry Published by the Highest Permission, SPb., 1851, pp. 190-469). Worldcat finds only two copies of the journal publication (University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Columbia University). The print run of the separate edition is not known, but as a comparison, the print run of the offprint of N. Ivashintsov’s Russian Circumnavigations, also first published in the Zapiski (parts VII and VIII, 1849-1850), was stated to be 25 copies, and the book was not intended for sale (Lada-Mocarski, 135).

This is the first comprehensive history of the Great Northern Expedition of 1733-43 under command of Vitus Bering, which resulted in the European discovery of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, the Commander Islands, Bering Island, as well as detailed mapping of most of the Arctic coast of Siberia and the Kuril Islands. The book is based on the original documents of the expedition found in the Chief Naval Archive of the Russian Empire, the archives of the Hydrographical Department of the Imperial Naval Ministry, and Archive and Library of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. The preface outlines previous publications and works on the topic (maps and books of Joseph-Nicolas De L’Isle, Gerhard Miller, Gavrila Sarychev, Stepan Krasheninnikov, Georg Steller, Johann Gmelin, Johann Fischer, Ferdinand Wrangell, and others), and analyses the main archival sources used during writing the book.
The supplements include: 1) ‘‘Bering’s Proposals’’ (first complete publication of the manuscript with the proposals compiled by Vitus Bering upon his return from the First Kamchatka Expedition, they became one of the reasons for the organization of the Great Northern Expedition); 2) First Russian translation of Joseph-Nicolas De L’Isle’s ‘‘Explication de la carte des nouvelles découvertes au nord de la mer de sud’’ (1752); 3) List of members of the Great Northern Expedition; 4) Number of various types of the Expedition members (officers, doctors and their associates, clerks, carpenters, soldiers, drummers, sail repairs etc.), 4) Expenses of the Expedition; 5) Chirikov Proposal of the 25th July, 1746 (based on the results of the Expedition); 6) Miscellaneous notes.

Five folding maps show: 1) Russian Arctic and northeastern Siberia from Novaya Zemlya to Kamchatka and the Aleutian Islands; 2) North Pacific Ocean with detailed view of the Bering Sea and the coast of Alaska and North America as far south as the Monterey Bay; 3) routes of Bering and Chirikov (Alaska); 4) Spanberg and Walton (the Kuril Islands and Japan); 5) the Kayak Island (the Gulf of Alaska). The first two maps are compiled on the basis of the modern surveys (up to the 1850s), and the last three maps are the first publications based on the original maps of Lt. Sven Waxell (1701-1762) and navigator Sofron Khitrovo (d. 1756) (manuscript Map of the seen American Land with the newly discovered Islands, was found in the archives of the Hydrographical Department), Captain Alexey Chirikov (1703-1748), and Captain Martin Spanberg (1696-1761); the map of the Kayak Island was copied from the map in the journal of Sofron Khitrovo (found in the Library of the Academy of Sciences). The maps specify the discoveries made by Chirikov and Bering, positions of the ships on specific dates, relief of the Kayak Island and the Alaskan coast, sea depths.

The author of the book was Alexander Petrovich Sokolov (1816-1858), a noted historian of the Russian navy, known for his works Bering and Chirikov (1849), Chronicle of Wrecks and Fires on the Vessels of the Russian Fleet (1854), Russian Maritime Library (first comprehensive attempt of Russian bibliography on naval and maritime topics, first published in several parts of the Zapiski of the Hydrographical Department, 1847-1852; first separate edition in 1883), and others.

Soliday Part B-1261j; “Contains a full account of the voyages of Bering and Chirikov to the Northwest American Coast” (Wickersham 6116).

Sold

See all items in Travel
See all items by