An Account of the Pelew Islands

by George Keate

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Summary

In 1783 an East India Company packet, the Antelope, was wrecked on the Pelew Islands (in modern Micronesia). Captain Henry Wilson and his crew developed unusually amicable relations with the Palauan inhabitants and participated in expeditions against their enemies. After a stay of just over three months, they departed in a new vessel they had built, taking the 'prince' Lee Boo with them to Britain. Lee Boo was a figure of fashionable interest in London, at once highly regarded for his intelligence, yet treated also as an exotic curiosity. His death from smallpox in 1784 occasioned wide regretful comment. An Account of the Pelew Islands, which relates these events, was written by George Keate, a professional author, and is based on extensive interviews with Captain Wilson, Lee Boo and other participants. Its dramatic and well-written narrative made it one of the most popular late-eighteenth-century travel books and it was rapidly translated into several European languages and republished in five London editions up to 1803.
This new edition of the work reproduces the text of the fifth edition, noting the changes from earlier editions. It includes introductory essays on the significance of the text or late-eighteenth-century European culture and on the Micronesian dimensions of the voyage and the book. Annotations explain and contextualize points of historical and ethnographic significance and the original fine engraved portraits, views, artifacts and charts are included, as well as previously unpublished plates and clear new maps.

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