Our Journal in the Pacific. By the Officers of H.M.S. Zealous. EARDLEY-WILMOT, Sydney (ed.).

First edition, inscribed by the author on the first blank "The Right Hon. George Ward Hunt MP. With Lieut. S. Eardley Wilmot's Compliments". This work compiles the personal journals of the officers aboard HMS Zealous on a three-year Pacific tour from 1869 to 1873. George Ward Hunt (1825-1877) was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1874. In the same year, he was elected as a Conservative MP alongside the author's father, Sir John Eardley-Wilmot. Sydney Eardley-Wilmot left England in HMS Revenge and joined the Zealous at Panama. The ship then left Panama and "on January 25, 1870, for the Galapagos Islands, San Francisco, Victoria B. C. Esquimalt Harbor, the San Juan Islands, Vancouver, and return [sic] to San Francisco. The ship continued down the coasts of California and South America, making stops en route" (Forbes). Provenance: Henry Francis Redhead Yorke (1842-1914), naval officer, with his bookplate. Forbes 2986. Octavo. Frontispiece, 9 plates (5 full-page illustrations, 4 profile land views), folding map, in-text illustrations. With 24-page publisher's catalogue dated 1873 at rear. Original blue cloth, spine lettered in gilt, front cover decorated with gilt vignette of a ship, geometric device in blind on rear cover, brown surface-paper endpapers. Inscribed slip of paper on front pastedown. Pencil ownership inscription on the first blank. Bookseller's ink stamp on rear free endpaper verso. Binding worn, hinges cracked, abrasion to front pastedown, short closed tears to front free endpaper. A good copy.