Hartford, CT: Ezra Strong, 1835.
Price: $2,500.00
Hardcover. Enlarged edition, with additional text (see below). Octavo. 298pp. "Embellished with Engravings from Original Designs" which total 15 plates, including a duplicate of the frontispiece ("The Pirates Torturing the crew of the Schr, Mary") in the text, plus a small title page engraving. Full leather with gilt spine. Pencil and ink owner names and writing on the preliminary and terminal leaves, the text toned and stained throughout, a number of the signatures are loose, and the binding is heavily rubbed, good only.
A battered but complete copy of the Enlarged Edition of this uncommon American title, first published in 1825, which includes descriptions of a number of notorious pirates of the 17th and 18th Century, such as William Kidd, Josiah Burgess, William Fly, Thomas Howard, John Bowen, John Cornelius, David Williams, and other.
This edition is notable because it includes an additional 40-plus pages of new text at the rear (with its own title page) that documents more recent examples of piracy in and around North America. There are sections on the American Commodore David Porter, who hunted pirates in the West Indies from 1815-1822, as well as fresh reports of recent incidents in New England, most notably the 1831 mutiny on the *Vineland*, which was abandoned off the coast of Long Island, and what must be the earliest printed account of the 1834 piracy of the Brig *Mexican* by the crew of the *Panda*, who were captured and executed in Boston on June 11, 1835, shortly before publication.
In addition to the new text, this copy also includes 15 plates (depicting sea battles, ships on fire, and sailors being thrown overboard or tortured by pirates), which is twice the number noted in *Howes* (144).
A well-handled but complete copy of an uncommon edition of this American pirate book with *OCLC* locating nine copies of this edition, but none earlier.
Item #625033
