NavList:

Hello Henry.

Yep! That's "Bowditch-Kirby," as I call it. It was licensed by Blunt, and sold in Britain in at least three editions. I'm sure you've heard the story of Blunt withholding the first edition of Bowditch. It was ready for sale in 1801, but Blunt wanted to make a deal to license the work in Britain before the American edition was "out in the wild". So they waited until 1802.

I compiled a list a few years back which you can access right from the main NavList web page: http://www.fer3.com/arc/navbooks2.html. It includes links to numerous historical editions of Bowditch and other navigation manuals and tables. Among them, right near the top, you'll find the first edition of Bowditch-Kirby from 1802 and the third edition from 1809. It's interesting that Kirby substantially re-wrote Bowditch's text, maybe even more than Bowditch had changed Moore's text.

Regarding the list above, it's not comprehensive by any means, though I think I've managed to get nearly all of the available editions of Bowditch. I know you've collected quite a long list of links to historical navigation books online. Please let me know if there are any major omissions, or any that you think should be added to the list.

-FER

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