4 volumes. xvi, 414; vii, 438; viii, 407; viii, 471 pp. With 4 engraved added title-pages with vignettes (dated 1831); 3 (of 4) engraved frontispieces; 2 additional plates; 3 folding maps; folding facsimile. 17.3x10.3 cm. (6¾x4¼"), original cloth, recased with new endpapers, repairs to spines.

One of the earliest publications of ethnological research by a missionary, noted by Hill as "one of the most important and enlightened missionary accounts of the South Seas, especially of Tahiti... Its publication helped alter the perception of missionaries in the eyes of those who thought of them as ignorant and narrow-minded men..." Hill 549 (1st ed.). This edition is a later printing of the 1831 second edition, and includes illustrations and material not in the first edition; "[the] fourth volume contains the text of Ellis' tour around Hawaii" - Forbes 808; Hill, 551.