Volume I (of 3) only. xvii, [1], 624 pp. Illustrated with 88 (of 89) lithographed plates (3 are in full color and 2 are folding); six maps; wood engravings in the text. Lacking the plate called for at p.144, "Chinese Temple Macao". (4to) 27x21.5 cm (10¾x8½"), period brown half morocco and cloth, gilt lettered in gilt, gilt-topped raised bands. First Edition
1856 inscription on front blank from Doctor E.E. Rice, U.S. Consul, Hakodadi, Japan to Robert H. Waters, Hong Kong. Penciled translations two following blank pages. Detailed and profusely illustrated account of Perry's expedition to open Japan to the West; as the Dictionary of American Biography describes it, "In January 1852 he [Perry] was selected to undertake the most important diplomatic mission ever entrusted to an American naval officer, the negotiation of a treaty with Japan, a country at this time sealed against intercourse with the Occidental powers." By March 31, 1854, the treaty granting the U.S. trading rights had been signed by the Japanese. Upon his return to the U.S., his chief duty for the following year was to compile his reports of the expedition, aided by Francis Hawks. The importance of Perry's mission to Japan cannot be overstated. Not only did Perry open Japan to Western trade and influences which she would soon master, thrusting her into the forefront of nations during the 20th century, but the accounts of the country and culture, and the pictorial representations, were some of the earliest to be readily available to the public, being superseded only by the cumbersome tomes of earlier missionaries. In addition to the artist W. Heine, from whose drawings a great number of the lithographs were made, the daguerreotypist E. Brown, Jr., went on the expedition, taking what were undoubtedly the earliest photographic images of Japan, many of them reproduced lithographically in this work. This copy without the nude bathing plate, which was not issued in all copies. Sabin 30968; Hill I: 230-1.