#OA9
1764
First English Edition. Quarto. [8], 280, [8], with 7 copper engraved maps and plates (four folding). Ca. 10¾ x 8 ¾ in, 27x22 cm. Period full calf, rebacked. Gilt lettering on the spine. Recent endpapers (marbled paper). Pencil notes of the previous owner on the endpaper versos. Corners of the binding is slightly scuffed, but overall a very good, large copy.
“The Russian Krasheninnikov started out across Siberia with Gerhard Friedrich Mueller and Johann Georg Gmelin, and then made his own way to Kamchatka. When Georg Wilhelm Steller arrived in Kamchatka to supervise his work, Krasheninnikov left in order to avoid becoming Steller’s assistant, and returned to St. Petersburg. Krasheninnikov nonetheless was able to make use of Steller’s notes in the preparation of his own narrative, and the inclusion of Steller’s observations on America, made during his travels with Bering’s second voyage, are an important part of this work, and constitute one of the earliest accounts of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. Steller’s account was not published until 1793. This work details the customs, morals, and religion of the Kamchatka peninsula, and discusses the power exercised by the magicians. Also described are the differences between the dialects of the Kamchatkans and those of the Korsairs and of the Kurile islanders. This is the first scientific account of those regions”(Hill 948). “Contains one of the earliest descriptions of Russian America and the Kurile Islands”( Howes K-265). Arctic Bibliography 9264; Lada-Mocarski 12 (Russian Edition); Sabin 3830.
