Lot 154
  • 154

Jarves, James Jackson

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Description

History of the Hawaiian Islands: Embracing Their Antiquities, Mythology, Legends, Discovery by Europeans in the Sixteenth Century, Re-Discovery by Cook, with their Civil, Religious and Political History, from the Earliest Traditionary Period to the Present Time. Honolulu: (Printed at the Government Press for) Charles Edwin Hitchcock, 1847



In 4s (8 3/4 x 5 1/2 in.; 223 x 141 mm). Text in double columns, 19 wood-engraved vignettes in text (one full-page); occasional soiling and foxing, signatures 19, 22, and 23 particularly foxed. Contemporary calf over floral-embossed cloth boards; rubbed, faded, joints cracked. Green cloth slipcase.

Literature

Forbes, Hawaiian National Bibliography 1654

Catalogue Note

First Hawaiian edition, third overall. This new edition—comprising "quite double the reading matter of the preceding"—benefited from Jarves's appointment in July 1844 as director of the government press and editor of the Polynesian, the official publication of the Hawaiian government, which allowed him "free access  to the entire archives of the government" (preface).