Exquemelin & Ringrose, Bucaniers of America

EXQUEMELIN, Alexandre Olivier (1645-1707) RINGROSE, Basil (died 1686).
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: William Crooke, at the Green Dragon, 1684 – 1685.
Comparable: Christie's, 2007 - $27,400.
2 volumes, 4to (8 3/4 x 6 1/2 in.; 22.2 x 16.5 cm). VOL. I: Engraved allegorical illustrataion (D4v), 6 full-page engraved plates (including 4 of the buccaneers Rock Brasiliano, Bartholomew Portugues, Sir Henry Morgan, and Francis Lolonais), 3 double-page engraved plates (including a map of Panama) and one or two woodcut text illustrations; title-page lightly soiled and creased with repair to top margin, Nn1 stained chiefly in margin, Pp3 torn at top and small hole on Eee2 costing a few letters in headline and text respectively, some light staining at end. VOL. 2: engraved folding map of the South Sea and Coast of America, engraved folding map of Hilo, 14 full-page engraved maps and plans, and numerous woodcut coastal profiles throughout, publisher’s 7-page advertisement at the end; title-page browned and creased with marginal repairs, hole on D1 costing about 5 words, upper inner corners of V2,3 torn, top margin of terminal leaf repaired, some staining at end. Uniformly bound in contemporary mottled calf, Cambridge-style binding in blind; rebacked, covers scuffed and cracked, vol. 1 lacking rear free endpaper.
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 is based on the Spanish edition of 1681, “which emphasized the worst aspects of the English buccaneers more strongly than the original text” (Hill). 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. The appended volume contains Basil Ringrose’s original account of the Pacific voyage of Bartholomew Sharpe. Ringrose had joined a party of some 330 buccaneers who, under Captain Peter Harris, landed at Golden Island on 5 April 1680 with the intention of marching over the Isthmus of Darien to sack Panama. He fought later in a sea battle in the Bay of Panama where three armed Spanish vessels were seized. Thus equipped to mount unlimited operations against the Spaniards, and under the new leadership of Captain Bartholomew Sharpe, the buccaneers scoured the length of the Pacific coast in pursuit of prizes. Of the five buccaneers who kept journals of the expedition, Ringrose’s is by far the most detailed account.
PROVENANCE: R. Graves, Hosp. Liniston 1697 (inscription 1:20); John Noval (pen trials dated 1701 on front pastedown of vol. 2); engraved armorial with motto “Tempus Edax Rerum” cut round and mounted on verso of title-pages; Arthur and Elizabeth Holdsworth of Widdicomb (engraved bookplates on front pastedown of vol. 1 and rear pastedown of vol. 2)
REFERENCES: Church 689; ESTC R21225 & R20999; Hill pp. 99–100; JCB 1675–1700, pp. 131–32; Sabin 23479; Wing E-3894.