The Discovery of Tahiti

This is the shipboard journal of George Robertson, master of HMS Dolphin under Captain Samuel Wallis, covering the circumnavigation of 1766-1768. The narrative follows the voyage from England through the Strait of Magellan into the Pacific and the ship's stay at Tahiti in 1767, the first recorded European landing there. Robertson notes navigation, scurvy, and discipline, then the exchanges of goods, sex, and violence between crew and islanders, including the trade in iron nails and the naming of the island for King George. The book is a primary voyage narrative, not a later ethnography and not a life of Wallis.

Quarter bound in green cloth, yellow paper boards with a repeat pattern in dark brown by Gibbings. No dust-jacket. The Presentation Volume for 1955.