![[TRAVEL] KEATE, GEORGE. An Account of the Pelew Islands, Situated in the Western Part of the Pacific Ocean, Composed from the Journa...](/sites/default/files/styles/auction_slider/public/images/lots/995/1463995.jpg?itok=Y_Te5DxB)
Lot Details
Lot 1077
[TRAVEL] KEATE, GEORGE. An Account of the Pelew Islands, Situated in the Western Part of the Pacific Ocean, Composed from the Journals and Communications of Captain Henry Wilson, and Some of His Officers, Who, in August 1783, Were There Shipwrecked, in the Antelope...
London: G. Nicol, 1788. First edition. Red morocco spine gilt, calf sides (most likely a remboitage), all edges stained, modern slipcase. 11 1/2 x 9 inches (29 x 23.5 cm); xxviii pp., 378 pp., errata leaf with 9 items; stipple-engraved portrait frontispiece and 3 additional portraits (including the portrait of Lee Boo), 12 engraved plates and maps, 3 folding. Neatly rebacked and recornered, the binding likely a composite remboitage (though rarely books with morocco spines and calf sides are seen, so this could conceivably be the original binding restored) hinges renewed at endpapers, plates somewhat toned, generally a clean copy.
A classic account of shipwreck by the artist, natural historian and antiquarian Keate, a friend of Samuel Johnson and Angelica Kauffmann among others. Hill states of the voyage the author recounts here "In 1783, the Antelope, commanded by Captain Henry Wilson, ran onto a reef near one of the Palau Islands, a previously unexplored group, and was wrecked. The entire crew managed to get safely ashore, where they were well treated by the natives and eventually managed to build a small vessel from the wreck, in which they reached Macao. They took Prince Lee Boo, one of King Abba Thulle's sons, with them to England, where he made a good impression." The unfortunate Lee Boo was a great social success, but he likely had no resistance to the then-prevalent smallpox, and he died of it six months after his arrival in England. The portrait of him in the work was painted by Keate's daughter, Georgiana Jane, just over a year after his death. Cox II, 302; Hill 907.
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