The Log of HMS Bounty
1787-89

BY WILLIAM BLIGH

"A truly beautiful job - apart from the pride in ownership of a work of such craft, it is hard to know where else you might be able to enjoy the intimate confidences of this well-known figure as he writes his thoughts each day in his log; and if you find out how Captain Bligh knew Fletcher Christian had a star tattooed on his backside, then let me know." Yachting Monthly

"A monumental example of book production". The Journal of The Royal Society of Arts, 1976

Our first book. After studying at The London College of Printing and working for three book publishers, Brian Roylance founded Genesis Publications in a one-roomed office in Guildford.

After receiving permission to publish the hand-written account of the voyage of the Bounty from the manuscript held in The Public Record Office in London, the embryonic Genesis got a further boost when the late Lord Mountbatten agreed to write the Foreword. The then Admiral of the Fleet kindly went on to write three more Forewords to subsequent Genesis titles.

The story of the Bounty is well-known. During the ship's five month stay in Tahiti there was a slackening of discipline on this sensuous and relaxing tropical island - this 'paradise of the world' as Bligh himself called it - and was accompanied by a good deal of womanising.

It was a point of pride and status among the beautiful dark Tahitian girls to get themselves a white sailor, and many of the Bounty's crew acquired several women.

Back at sea the bullying Bligh trying to compensate for his lack of authority on land caused anger and resentments to boil over. Fletcher Christian and his accomplices mutinied and cast Bligh and eighteen crew members adrift, poorly provisioned, in a small launch. The resulting 3,600 mile voyage to safety through largely unchartered seas is one of the greatest feats of navigation, seamanship and leadership ever recorded. It is vividly documented in The Voyage of the Bounty Launch by John Fryer, the Master of the Bounty. The Mutiny is further detailed in The Mutinous Seizure of the Bounty.

Excerpt from Bligh's description of the mutiny.

The edition was limited to 500 copies of which 450 Regular copies were bound in quarter leather while 50 Deluxe copies signed by Lord Mountbatten were bound in full leather by the world famous Zaehnsdorf bindery in London. We've never known a copy to come up in auction.

ISBN: 0 904351 00 9

The Log of HMS Bounty is further referred to in George Harrison's Foreword to I Me Mine. Pleased with the book to which he'd contributed his Foreword, Lord Mountbatten presented copies to HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and to HRH Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales, who in turn wrote Forewords to Joseph Banks' Journal in the Endeavour; Matthew Flinders Journal and Darwin's Beagle Journal.