Exquemelin, Alexandre Olivier

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. [With:] Basil Ringrose. Bucaniers of America. The Second Volume. London: Printed for William Crooke, 1684 & 1685



2 volumes, 4to (8 5/8 x 6 3/8 in.; 220 x 162 mm). Volume 1 consists of 3 parts with 9 engraved plates (2 folding and 3 double-page) including 4 portraits and a map of Panama, 1 engraved allegorical text illustration, Volume 2 with 2 engraved folding maps, 12 engraved text maps, and many woodcut coastal outlines; both titles soiled and creased, marginal soiling and spotting, leaf Nn1 stained, upper margin of last page of volume 2 mended.  Uniformly bound in contemporary mottled calf, blind-tooled in a panel design with roll-tooled floral borders around the central panels and thistle stamps at four corner; rebacked, corners and edges mended, endpapers of volume 1 renewed, covers scuffed and cracked.

Arthur & Elizabeth Holdsworth Widdicomb (armorial bookplate in vol. 1, contemporary price notation "5 soldi") — John Noval (ms. exlibris in vol. 2, dated "1701") — Bisset, of Lessendrum, county Aberdeen (armorial bookplate mounted on each title verso with motto "Tempus edax rerum")

Hill (2004) 578 & 579 (second part); Sabin 23479; Wing E-3896 & E-3897

both titles soiled and creased, marginal soiling and spotting, leaf Nn1 stained, upper margin of last page of volume 2 mended. Uniformly bound in contemporary mottled calf, blind-tooled in a panel design with roll-tooled floral borders around the central panels and thistle stamps at four corner; rebacked, corners and edges mended, endpapers of volume 1 renewed, covers scuffed and cracked.
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First edition in English of this famous account of English and French pirates then harassing the West Indies, and the first edition of Ringrose's continuation. First issued in Dutch (1678), this English translation was prepared from the Spanish version "which emphasized the worst aspects of the English buccaneers more strongly than the original text" (Hill) leading several former buccaneers to bring libel suits against the publisher.

Here it is accompanied by Ringrose's account of the Pacific voyage of Bartholomew Sharpe, billed as "The Second Volume" of Exquemelin.