[G. Shelekhov’ Voyage from 1783 to 1790, from Okhotsk over the Eastern Ocean to the American Shores, and His Return to Russia; with the detailed Report about the Discovery of the Newly Gained Islands of Kyktak and Afognak, which haven’t been reached by the glorious English Navigator Captain Cook; Supplemented with the Description of the Style of Life, Manners, Customs, Habitations and Costumes of the Local People Who Submitted Themselves to the Russian Empire; also of the Climate, Yearly Changes, Wild and Domesticated Animals, Fish, Birds, Earth Vegetation and Many Other Curious Things There; All Truthfully and Correctly Being Described by [Shelekhov] Himself].

(17x10,5 cm). Third but first textually complete edition. 2 parts bound together. [2], 172; [2], 90 pp. With a copper-engraved frontispiece. Period brown Russian full calf; spine with a maroon sheep label and a gilt-lettered title. Binding rubbed on extremities, spine with minor losses on the top and bottom, but overall a very good internally clean copy in a very original condition.

Provenance: Owner’s inscription on the front cover. This book is from the library of Demian Utenkov (1948-2014) who was famous for his phantasmagoric Siberian engravings.

Very rare Russian imprint, with only four paper copies found in Worldcat (Harvard University, Cornell University, University of Alaska Anchorage Consortium Library, University of Oxford). This is the third and best Russian edition of Grigory Shelekhov’s account of his exploratory and commercial voyages from Okhotsk to the Aleutian Islands and the Alaskan coast in 1783-1789, with an important firsthand account of the foundation of the first Russian settlement in North America (Kodiak Island) and the early years of Shelekhov’s fur trade enterprise which would soon become the Russian-American Company. Only this edition contains all three parts of Shelekhov’s account: the description of his first travel in 1783-1787 (published in the first edition, 1791, with two variants of the title page known), extensive “Historical and Geographical Description of the Kuril, Aleutian, Andreanof, and Fox Islands, stretched over the Eastern Ocean from Kamchatka to America” (first published in the second edition, 1793), and the “[Voyage to America] of the galliot named “Three Hierarchs” under the command of two navigators, Izmailov and Bocharov in 1788” (separately published as a supplement to the first edition in 1792). Worldcat lists only three copies of the first edition of 1791 (Newberry Library, New York Public Library, Yale University Library; all copies bound with the 1792 supplement) and one copy of the second edition of 1793 (British Library, also bound with the 1792 supplement).

Grigory Shelekhov, a Russian seafarer and merchant, started organizing commercial fur hunting voyages of Russian ships from Okhotsk to the North Pacific (Kuril and Aleutian Islands) and Alaska in 1775. In 1783, he organized and took part in the voyage along the Aleutian Islands, during which he proved that the Kodiak was an island and discovered several islands of the Kodiak Archipelago, including Afognak Island. In 1784, Shelekhov founded the first permanent Russian settlement on Kodiak Island, which was to become the centre of Russian America for the next 20 years. In 1785-86, he sent a party of navigators to explore the southern part of the Alaskan peninsula and the Kenai (Cook) Inlet. The party described the Kenai Peninsula, islands in the Gulf of Alaska, and the Alaskan shore up to Cape Saint Elias on the Kayak Island. On Shelekhov’s assignment, Gavriil Pribylov went to the Pacific Ocean north of the Aleutian Islands in 1786 and discovered a group of islands named after him (Pribilof Islands). The last part of the book is dedicated to one more exploratory voyage organized by Shelekhov. Russian ship “Three Hierarchs” under the command of navigators Dmitry Bocharov and Gerasim Izmailov, explored and mapped about 800 km of the Alaskan coast, from the Kenai Peninsula to the Lituya Bay, including the Yakutat Bay. The state-funded Russian American Company was founded on the base of Shelekhov’s fur trading company (owned together with merchant Ivan Golikov) in 1799.

“Bancroft considered these two narratives as “one of the chief authorities for this period [1783-1787] of Alaskan history.” The first editions are extremely rare; even the subsequent editions are difficult to find, and they command a high price” (Lada-Mocarski).

The frontispiece is “a fanciful picture of Shelekhov and three natives, one of the latter tendering to Shelekhov a fur skin, the second smoking a pipe, and the third witnessing the trade which is about to take place over the barrel top. In the sky, the Mercury floats as an indication that trade, not a gift, is involved. Below the picture, there are four lines of laudatory verses, referring to the Russian Columbuses (sic!) who extended the frontiers of the Russian Empire to America” (Lada-Mocarski).

Shelekhov’s account was translated into German (SPb., 1793) and English (published in: Varieties of literature, from foreign literary journals and original mss., now first published ... / [compiled by William Tooke]. London: Printed for J. Debrett, 1795. Vol. 2, p. [1]-42).

Lada-Mocarski 49 (first edition); Sabin [77539 for the German edition of 1793]; Sopikov 11566 (Part II erroneously indicated the year 1795 as the date of the 1st edition). Wickersham 6284 (incorrect attribution of the 1793 edition as the 1st edition of part I; it should be 1791). The most complete and scholarly study of different editions is that of Avrahm Yarmolinsky (Yarmolinsky, A. Shelekov’s voyage to Alaska// Bulletin of the New York Public Lib., March 1932, p. 141-148). (All references taken from Lada-Mocarski).