From William Reese Company - Americana, New Haven, CT, U.S.A.
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About this Item
[4],23,[1]pp. Antique-style half calf and marbled boards, spine gilt, leather label. Some faint toning, else quite clean. Near fine. Scarce socio-sexual satirical poem in which "a lady of quality" writes to Omai requesting more Polynesian men to satisfy the appetites of her European sisters. The poem reads: "Come, Southern youths! these happy feats explore, / New pleasures wait you on Britannia's shore." The author was a Dublin- born poet and playwright. The sexual overtones are complemented by the author's social commentary on British greed and love of luxury: "Two fiends with joint and sov'reign sway shall reign, / The love of pleasure, and the love of gain, / And full, and perfect, as in British soul, / Absorb all feelings, and all aims controul." Omai was the first Tahitian to visit England, arriving aboard the Adventure, one of the ships with Cook's second voyage. He was returned to the Society Islands by Cook in November of 1777, in the course of Cook's third and final voyage. "When the Adventure arrived in England Omai was taken under the wing of Joseph Banks who, along with Solander, presented him at court on 17 July 1774. He was received with such favour that he was granted a royal pension while in England. Shortly afterwards (possibly at the king's urging) he was taken by Banks and Solander to Baron Dimsdale in Hertfordshire to be inoculated against smallpox (the disease had killed Omai's compatriot, Aoutourou, the first Tahitian to visit Europe, who had been taken to France in 1769 by Bougainville). While in England, thanks to the connections made possible by Banks, Lord Sandwich, and the Burneys, Omai came to know many of the most prominent members of aristocratic and literary society. When Dr. Johnson met him in April 1776 he was 'struck with the elegance of his behaviour,' accounting for it on the grounds that 'he had passed his time, while in England, only in the best company; so that all that he had acquired of our manners was genteel' (Boswell, LIFE, 3.8).During his two years in England Omai provided elite society with a living example of the 'noble savage' and a focus for discussions about the virtues of natural man as against the artificiality produced by civilization.He was painted by a number of major artists, most notably Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose celebrated portrait of Omai is now in the Tate collection" - DNB. Only a dozen copies are listed in ESTC. ESTC N22237. DNB (online). Seller Inventory # WRCAM41594
Bibliographic Details
Title: SEVENTEEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SEVEN: OR, A ...
Publisher: Printed for W. Wilson, Dublin
Publication Date: 1777
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