Beschreibung:

EXQUEMELIN, Alexandre Olivier (1645?-1707). Bucaniers of America: Or, a true Account of the Most remarkable Assaults Committed of late years upon the Coasts of the West Indies, By the Bucaniers of Jamaica and Tortuga, both English and French . London: for William Crooke, 1684. -- Bucaniers of America. The Second Volume . London: Crook, 1685. 2 volumes, 4 o (225 x 180 mm). Three engraved maps (one a large folding "Description of the South Sea & Coasts of America" 350 x 258 mm.), 4 views, 4 portraits (of Rock Brasiliano, Batholomew Portugues, Sir Henry Morgan, Francis Lolonais), numerous woodcuts in text (three small rustholes). Nineteenth-century polished sprinkled calf, gilt fillet borders, gilt spines, edges gilt, by F. Bedford; quarter morocco clamshell case. A FINE, WIDE-MARGINED COPY. Provenance : Lord Rosebery (small Rosebery Durdans stamp on margin of titles, gilt leather bookplates); Davis Grubb (1955 signatures), author of Night of the Hunter (1953). FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of this classic account of the pirates, then at the apogee of their power and menace: "the classic of buccaneering books" (Hill), first issued in Dutch in 1678. This translation was based on a Spanish edition of 1681. The appended volume contains Basil Ringrose's original account of the Pacific voyage of Bartholomew Sharpe. Sir Henry Morgan, one of the swashbuckling subjects, honored with a portrait and a view of his destruction of the Spanish fleet, sued the publisher for libel and won a judgement. The fourth part (Ringrose) is often lacking. Church 689; Hill, pp. 99-100; JCB 1675-1700 , pp. 131-2; Sabin 23479; Wing E-3894. (2)