Bowditch, Nathaniel.

The New American Practical Navigator: being an Epitome of Navigation.

      Edmund M. Blunt, Newburyport, MA 1807 - Tall octavo. Eleven engraved plates including a folding frontispiece map of the Atlantic Ocean. Contemporary and possibly original calf with red label. Map with mends to fold tears, front joint with very subtle repair, a very handsome and attractive copy. The second edition, with considerable additions to the First published in 1802. A quite appealing copy with little or no evidence of open-water use of a title renowned for being found in well worn or damaged condition. This edition followed the first by five years, and contains several more plates and over 100 additional pages of text. "Often termed the greatest book in all the history of navigation . an intellectual achievement of our early culture . indispensable to the maritime and commercial expansion of the nineteenth century" - Grolier 100 American, concerning the 1802 edition, also published by Blunt. In 1799, Blunt published "A New American Navigator", based on Hamilton Moore's "The New Practical Navigator", published in London in 1772. Bowditch had taken five long sea voyages beginning in 1795 and made extensive use of Moore's work which he found to be replete with errors. What he initially intended to be a revision of Moore's work instead became an entirely new volume, and Bowditch's legacy. Noted by Howes as the "First accurate navigator's guide." A very appealing copy of a book which, due to it's practical use, is generally encountered in poor condition.