Müller and Drage | two works on the north Pacific, 1761 & 1768

BOOKS FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE EARLS OF HADDINGTON, LOTS 54-108

NORTH WEST PASSAGE AND NORTH PACIFIC

Two works bound in one volume:

Müller, Gerhard Friedrich. Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the north west coast of America. London: Thomas Jefferys, 1761

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, 2 folding engraved maps, hand-coloured in outline, 2 smaller engraved maps [Sabin 51285 (3 maps); Lada-Mocarski 17; Wagner 597; Streeter 3458; Hill (2004) 1199]

[Drage, Theodore Swaine] The great probability of a North West Passage: deduced from observations of Admiral de Fonte... With an appendix containing the account of a discovery of part of the coast and inland country of Labrador, made in 1753. London: for Thomas Jefferys, 1768

FIRST EDITION, half-title, 3 folding engraved maps, the first hand-coloured in outline, by or after Thomas Jefferys, final advertisement leaf, [Hill (2004) 881; Sabin 28460; Staton & Tremaine 417; Streeter VI 3464; Wagner, Northwest Coast 614]

Together 2 works bound in one volume, 4to (257 x 203mm.), contemporary speckled calf, spine with Baillie’s golden fleece motif, red morocco label

A FINE COPY. Two companion works published by Jefferys on explorations in the north Pacific. The first is Müller’s account of the discovery of the Bering Strait, edited and enlarged by Jefferys. The second is "An interesting work in the history of the search for the Northwest Passage, discussing the possibility of a passage through to Hudson Bay, or Baffin Bay, via the Strait of Juan de Fuca, or at about the latitude of Queen Charlotte Island." (Hill)

Glyn Williams, in Voyages of Delusion (Yale University Press, 2003, pp.212-4, 266-8), provides evidence that the author of this anonymous work is Theodore Swaine Drage who also wrote the two-volume account of the Smith voyage to the north-west passage in 1749 under the pseudonym Clerk of the California.

Both works are handsomely illustrated with maps by Jefferys.

PROVENANCE:

George Baillie (1664–1738), armorial bookplate applied posthumously; Hon. George Baillie Hamilton (c.1721–1797), signature on title; thence by descent to the Earls of Haddington