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Sketches in the Pacific. The South Sea Islands.
London: Published by T. Mclean, 1851. Folio, full blue Turkey morocco, elaborate gilt title emblem with inlaid red morocco on both covers, two sets of gilt rules and two sets of blind-stamped rules on both covers, re-backed with original spine laid down, a.e.g. Hand-colored lithographic title leaf, [4], 35, [1] pp., 25 hand-colored lithographic plates. Circular bookplate reading “Elphinstone Carberry Tower” on front paste-down, ownership inscription in ink on front free endpaper reading “William F. Elphinstone H.M.S Grampus.” CONDITION: Very good, light scuffing and edge-wear, strip of leather at upper left corner of rear cover formerly peeled away now reattached, some tissue guards with a tide mark at one corner and corresponding fading, tissue guards incorrectly reinserted during rebinding (tide-marked corners don’t align), contents quite attractive, plates possibly cleaned. The rare hand-colored issue of one of the finest of all South Pacific plate books, with twenty-five beautiful views of Tahiti, Pitcairn’s Island, the Society Islands, Samoa, and Fiji, in the publisher’s even rarer deluxe full morocco binding. “Conway Shipley was a lieutenant on the H.M.S. Calypso during its supply voyage to Anglican mission stations in the South Seas in 1848. His lithographs and text here constitute the best printed source on this expedition, which called at Pitcairn Island, Tahiti, the Society Islands, Samoa, and Fiji. Less famous than the lithographs are the thirty-five pages of text, which ‘include pertinent observations on the impact of European religion and political rivalries on the native islanders, especially concerning the violent state of society in Samoa at that time.’ While the Calypso was anchored at Samoa, for example, the London Missionary Society's church at Aana was burned and Captain Worth was entreated to send a punitive expedition to demand compensation. Although the text is of interest, ‘it is Shipley’s extraordinary lithographs that command most attention, possessed as they are of a strange, haunting luminescence’ (cf. Quaritch). A talented artist, Shipley includes plates of Pitcairn, Tahiti, Samoa, and Fiji. At Pitcairn, he depicts the schoolhouse and chapel, Fletcher Christian's house, and Bounty Bay. Included in the Tahiti and Society Islands section are views of Papeite Bay, Toup Nicholas Island, Houtoua Valley, Queen Ariipeas’s house at Huahine, the coral church, mission house, and Taloo bay at Eimeo, and Queen Pomare's house at Papeite. There are also views of Bora Bora. In Samoa, Shipley depicts scenes at Upolu: a bridge of native construction near Vailele, a view of Apia Bay, and the village of Letongo. Among the plates of Fiji, there are images of the missionary station at Sandalwood Bay, the house of Tanoa, and Mbure,’ or house of a spirit, all at Mbua. Also included is a plate of facsimile signatures of Arifaite, spouse of Queen Pomare; Tamatoa, King of Raiatea; Terii maevarua, King of Bora-Bora; and Aripea, Queen of Huahine, as well as a facsimile of a letter from Queen Pomare to her family, with a translation by G. Pritchard” (Hill). Fully colored copies are rare, with just two recorded in Rare Book Hub over the past fifty years, one with just fourteen plates colored and the other with all twenty-five colored, but lacking the first six leaves of text. Moreover, we find no record of another copy in full publisher’s morocco. Nearly all the other copies in the auction records, both the standard tinted version and the hand-colored, are in cloth with the same elaborate title device on the covers, with a few in half morocco or half calf. This copy was once in the library of William Buller Fullerton Elphinstone, 15th Lord Elphinstone and 1st Baron Elphinstone (1828–1893) at Carberry Tower, Scotland, near Edinburgh—a splendid country house that today serves as a hotel. Elphinstone entered the Royal Navy in 1841, was commissioned lieutenant in 1848, commander in 1856, and retired captain in 1870. After succeeding his cousin to the lordship in 1861, he was elected a Scottish peer in 1871 and served as a lord-in-waiting in the Disraeli government (1874–1880) and under Lord Salisbury (1885–1889). Elphinstone himself was an artist who traveled in the South Pacific and contributed sketches of New Zealand subjects to James Anthony Froude’s Oceana, or, England and Her Colonies (1886). A beautiful and important South Pacific plate book. REFERENCES: Kroepelien, Bibliotheca Polynesiana; Abbey, Travel in Aquatint and Lithography 601; Ferguson, Bibliography of Australia 15656a; Hill, The Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages 1564; “William Elphinstone, 15th Lord Elphinstone” at Wikipedia online; “William Buller Fullerton Elphinstone R.N.” at Victorian Royal Navy online.
Item #9924
Price: $55,000.00
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