- 131
Stewart, Charles Samuel
Description
2 volumes, 12mo (7 1/4 x 4 1/8 in.; 185 x 105 mm). [London ed.]: Engraved frontispiece and 3 plates, engraved folding map; lacks terminal leaf, minor loss to upper right corner of title-page, light scattered foxing, edges of plates browned. Later half calf over marbled boards; upper board lightly rubbed. [New York ed.]: Engraved frontispiece; lacking the map of Sandwich Islands and 7 plates, light dampstaining and text browning, occasional marginal foxing. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards, marbled endpapers; rebacked, restoration to corners.
Provenance
Richard Banks (London ed., ownership inscriptions on front free endpaper and flyleaf); Lyman House Memorial bookplate in memory of Jessie Mackenzie Simpson (New York ed.)
Literature
Catalogue Note
First English and Third American editions, "One of the primary narratives of Hawaii in the 1820s" (Forbes). Stewart and his wife arrived in Honolulu on the ship Thames in the second company of American missionaries. The Stewarts were stationed at Lahaina on Maui until 1827 when Mrs. Stewart became seriously ill, necessitating the couple's return to the United States. Stewart later became a chaplain for the United States Navy, revisiting the islands in 1829 aboard the U. S. S. Vincennes, the first American naval vessel to circumnavigate the globe.
Stewart's work contains a detailed description of Maui, along with an accounts of the conversion and death of Queen Keopuolani, widow of Kamehameha I. Stewart also describes the arrival of the H. M. S. Blonde bearing the bodies of King Kamehameha II and Kamamalu.