[DRAGE, Theodore Swain or Charles SWAIN, attributed to]. An Account of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage… in the Year 1746 and 1747, in the Ship California, Capt. Francis Smith, Commander. L, 1748. FIRST EDITION.
Sold for $15,120
2 volumes in one, 8vo (195 x 121 mm). 6 engraved folding maps (most with tears crossing image with old repairs verso), 4 engraved plates. (Some spotting.) Contemporary English paneled calf (rebacked to style, preserving old lettering-piece and endpapers). Provenance: Collector's bookplate, a few pencil marks.
FIRST EDITION, published anonymously, though now known to have been authored by Captain William Moor's second-in-command, Theodore Swain Drage (thought to have lived for a time under the name Charles Swaine). "Drage’s Account is a significant item in the literature relating to the attempts at finding the Northwest Passage, being particularly relevant to the Dobbs-Middleton controversy. It tells of a voyage undertaken to sustain Arthur Dobbs’ claim that a northwest passage existed leading from Hudson Bay" (Streeter). Arthur Dobbs was not satisfied with the results of the Admiralty expedition led by Christopher Middleton (1741-42) and sent William Moor and Francis Smith in the Dobbs and the California to re-examine Wager Bay. The expedition overwintered at the Hudson Bay Company's York factory. Sabin 20808; Staton & Tremaine/TPL 206; Streeter Sale VI:3640.