Lights and Shadows of Sailor Life, as Exemplified in Fifteen Years' Experience, including the More Trilling Events of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, and Reminiscences of an Eventful Life on the "Mountain Wave

Boston: John Putnam, 1847. 8vo. 190 x 120 mm., ( 7 1/2 x 4 3/3 inches). xii, 13-324 pp. Original brown cloth, rubbed, slight tear to cloth joints, but sound; some foxing to a few signatures. This copy inscribed to Richard Sheppard by an anonymous friend. First edition. Little is known of the author Joseph G. Clark, but his stories of travels in the Pacific Brazil, Chile, Samoa, New Zeeland, the East Indies and Hawaii captured the public's imagination and a second edition was hurried into print in 1848. A well written book, Clark provides exciting detail of places and inhabitants he encountered and detailed physical descriptions of the remote places he (truncated) visited. He also writes a great deal about California, its natural resources, the cities of Sacramento and San Francisco and the Columbia River Valley. He provides a birds-eye-view of Captain Wilkes and the U.S. Exploring Expedition, written for the "working classes" who are unable to afford the expensive set published by the government. Sabin 13322. Howes C 442. Smith, American Travellers Abroad, C 63. (382). (Inventory #: 382)