The New American Practical Navigator: Being an Epitome of Navigation; Containing all the Tables Necessary to be Used with the Nautical Almanac in Determining the Latitude, and the Longitude by Lunar Observations, and Keeping a Complete Reckoning at Sea...
New York: E. & G. W. Blunt, 1839. Eleventh Edition. Diagrams, plates, tables. Leather over boards. Quarto. xvi, 317, [1], 447, 4 pages.
An 1839 working copy of the most authoritative, error-corrected, and universally trusted navigation manual. First published in 1799 after Bowditch recomputed, rearranged, and expanded the then standard work by John Hamilton Moore of the Royal Navy, Bowditch's work soon replaced that of Moore as the standard navigation text aboard virtually every deep-water vessel.
This copy bears several signs of its useful life, including several index tabs attached to fore edges, prior ownership inscriptions (the last of which is dated 1855), and the lack of blank preliminary and postliminary leaves. A pleasingly patinated copy.
Ref. CAMPBELL 15.
Bound in leather over boards with gilt-stamped spine title label. General wear to exterior, including rubs, scuffs, and mild extremity bumps. Boards somewhat cupped. Lacking blank leaves at front and rear. Edge creases, scattered pencil marginalia, and general thumbing to textblock. Frontispiece chart has been misfolded several times but remains fully intact with printed area free of tears. Binding shows some sympathetic restoration at top of spine. A pleasing and still quite usable copy.
Item #2006
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