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[TRAVELS AND VOYAGES]. PERRY, Commodore Matthew Calbraith, 1794-1858. Narrative of the Expedition of an American Squadron to the China Seas and Japan, Performed in the Years 1852, 1853, and 1854. Washington: A.O.P. Nicholson, 1856. 4tos. Volume I with 85 tinted lithograph plates (including the suppressed plate, “Public Bath at Simoda”), 2 folding chromolithograph facsimiles of paintings, 1 chromolithograph from a drawing, numerous woodcut illustrations in the text, 6 maps (2 folding); volume II with 7 lithographed plates (4 tinted), 2 engravings, 18 hand-coloured lithograph plates (6 of birds, 10 of fish, 2 of shells), 16 folding maps or charts, 16 graphs (with plots marked by hand in red and blue; volume III with 352 zodiacal wood engravings. Volume I: Title, blank, preface iii-vi, contents vii-xiii, blank, list of illustrations xv-xvii; i, errata, 1-513, blank, index 515-537, blank, (4); volume II: Title, publisher’s notice, preface, blank, contents, blank, errata, blank, 1-414, half-title, blank, title, blank, [right to left 1-14], (2), index iii-xi, blank, list of charts, blank, 15 charts; volume III: Title, publisher’s notice, introduction iii-xliii, blank, half-title, 2-705 pp. Complete. Publisher’s full purple cloth, boards decoratively stamped in blind, spines stamped in gilt (spines sunned, some edgewear, sunning to boards, some bumping to corners, some gutters starting, some occasional soiling). Still, a fine example. FIRST EDITION OF THE OFFICIAL REPORT OF COMMODORE PERRY’S IMPORTANT AND SUCCESSFUL MISSION TO JAPAN. Perry had been selected in January 1852 “to undertake the most important diplomatic mission ever entrusted to an American naval officer, the negotiation of a treaty with Japan, a country at this time sealed against intercourse with Occidental powers” (DAB). Perry felt that the way to bring Japan out of its isolationist position was to exhibit superior naval forces. His squadron of five vessels (‘kurofine’ or black ships to the Japanese who described the event) entered Araga Harbor on July 8, 1853. By March 31, 1854, the Japanese had been “forced to accept a treaty that stipulated better treatment of shipwrecked seamen and permitted American ships to obtain fuel and supplies at two Japanese ports...The most important result, however, was that the visit contributed to the collapse of the feudal regime and to the modernization of Japan. Hawks, the editor of this work, was rector of Calvary Church, New York City. The Commodore, underrating his [own] literary powers, declined to write the official report of the expedition. Instead,...the two worked together in preparing the report using a number of journals written by men on the voyage. Bayard Taylor accompanied this expedition”. (Hill). This copy contains the suppressed nude bathouse plate, not listed in the table on contents. These interesting plates depict the Japanese landscape, natives and customs of a county still very foreign to Americans at the time. “In this valuable scientific work the first successful attempt at producing a coloured lithograph, in imitation of drawing, is introduced.” Each volume with the contemporary ownership signature of Robert B. Williams, Jr. and J. N. Morrill on the ffep. (Sabin) Cf. Hill, p. 230. Sabin 30958.