WOODARD, David, The Narrative of Captain David Woodard and Four Seamen, Second edition (1805)

The Narrative of Captain David Woodard and Four Seamen, Who Lost Their Ship While in a Boat at Sea, and Surrendered Themselves up to the Malays in the Island of Celebes

London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1805. Second edition.

A second-edition copy, issued the year after the first, of this early first-hand account of shipwreck and captivity in Sulawesi, handsomely rebound in full two-tone leather and complete with both folding maps and the engraved plate of proas.

[xxxii], 236 pp., the text to p. 144, the appendices following to p. 236. Engraved portrait frontispiece of Captain Woodard, dated 1804. Two folding engraved maps by Woodard himself, "A Sketch of the Island of Celebes" and "A Sketch of part of the Western Coast of the Island of Celebes," both 1795. A further engraved plate depicting merchant and piratical proas, a canoe with outriggers, and implements of war and shields. A brief vocabulary of the Malay language to the text. Octavo. Rebound at a later date, not contemporary, in half navy morocco over buff cloth boards, triangular morocco corner-pieces gilt-ruled to match, spine in six compartments with raised bands, gilt-tooled, red morocco lettering-piece gilt "THE NARRATIVE OF CAPTAIN DAVID WOODARD," the publication date "1805" gilt at the foot. Edges speckled.

First published in 1804, edited by the merchant and philanthropist William Vaughan, whose brother sent a copy to Thomas Jefferson "to aid the project of a Society to devise the best means of lessening the causes of desponden[cy] & increasing the resources of Seamen in distress." Woodard's account is among the earliest first-hand English records of Sulawesi and its inhabitants, drawn from his own two-and-a-half-year captivity among the Malays, and it carries his own survey maps of the island alongside detailed descriptions of local proas, customs, and language. The appendix widens the book's scope considerably, reprinting other contemporary accounts of maritime disaster and captivity, including the Bounty mutineers, the loss of HMS Pandora, and a survivor's account of the Black Hole of Calcutta.

Binding bright and sound, the gilt tooling to the spine crisp, corners and boards square. Internally lightly and evenly toned throughout, with scattered foxing somewhat heavier to the portrait, title page, and the Western Coast folding map, the latter also showing a small chip at the upper fold as illustrated; the second map, the proa plate, and the Malay vocabulary leaf comparatively clean. Both maps and the plate present and complete.

A second edition of Woodard's narrative, attractively rebound and complete with its maps and plate, the foxing confined mainly to the frontispiece, title, and one folding map.