The American Coast Pilot; Containing the Courses and Distances Between the Principal Harbours, Capes & Headlands, From Passamaquoddy Through the Gulph of Florida; With Directions for Sailing Into the Same...
Newburyport, MA: Edmund M. Blunt, 1804. 4th Edition. 8vo. Good. Item #18102
A Rare Early Printing of THE seminal early American coastal navigation guide. This is the 4th Edition, and the first published with maps.
All of the Newburyport editions are quite scarce, and particularly so in original bindings, as many were lost in the Great Newburyport Fire of 1811.
This is the first edition to appear with maps, the engravers being A.M. Peasley and J.F.S. The charts cover the most important harbors between Portland, Maine and Charleston, S.C. and are plates. "The first 116 pages contain new material consisting of sailing directions for Newfoundland and Labrador. This new material was considered to be very useful to those engaged in the cod fishery." - Campbell
Eleven black and white engraved plates.
Original leather, with gilt ruling to spine and burgundy title label. Square tight binding. xiv, [2], 17-386pp, [6]. Clean interior, save for 1814, War of 1812-Era contemporary signature of Michael Thomas Warming to front pastedown. Sporadic moderate foxing throughout. Leather rubbed and worn with moderate edge wear. Crease to spine, which is somewhat brittle, and with a chip to crown. Moderate separation to text black between pages 178-179 (see pic), with pages front there to page 186 loose at the bottom. Map of New York harbor detached and laid in. Folding map of the Chesapeake with closed tears along some fold lines.
Overall a handsome and quite rare early Newburyport edition of Blunt's defining work.
Price: $600.00