MÜLLER, Gerhard Friedrich (1705-1783). Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the Discoveries of the North West Coast of America. To which is prefixed, a summary of the Voyages made by the Russians on the Frozen Sea, in Search of a North East Passage. Translated from the Dutch. Edited by Thomas Jefferys. London: Thomas Jefferys, 1764.
4to (253 x 201 mm). 4 engraved maps, including 2 large folding maps by THOMAS JEFFERYS, hand-colored in outline (some light offsetting and browning). Modern quarter calf. Provenance: 1765 presentation inscription (partially erased); James Smith (armorial bookplate); lot 3459, Thomas Winthrop Streeter Sale, Parke-Bernet 22-23 April 1969; Frank S. Streeter Library, (booklabel); lot 375, Frank S. Streeter sale, Christie’s 17 April 2007.
THOMAS WINTHROP AND FRANK S. STREETER’S COPY, SECOND AND BEST EDITION IN ENGLISH which is printed from a new set up of type and has various small textual changes, and the addition of an Index. Contains “the original account of Captain Behring’s Polar Expedition, and discovery of the strait which bears his name, and the western limits of North America. Taken from the third volume of Muller’s ‘Sammlung Russischer Geschichte,’ Petropol, 1758. Since the rapid developments of British Columbia and Alaska this important book is becoming indispensable for the history of discovery and exploration in the Northern Pacific” (See Lada-Mocarski 17). Cowan notes it as being “a work of great importance, being one of the earliest on this subject”. Hill 1200; Howes M-875 (“Most important contemporary account of Bering’s discoveries, by a scientist attached to his second expedition”); Lande 1358; Sabin 51285; Streeter VI: 3459 (THIS COPY); TPL 185; Wagner 597.