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Please read the detailed condition description that begins in the condition description field and concludes at the end of this entry. 

Complete two-volume first edition, published in London by John Murray in 1848. ALL 5 FOLDING MAPS PRESENT — ORIGINAL PICTORIAL CLOTH.

Both volumes are bound in the publisher's original red cloth, blind-stamped with decorative borders. The front boards bear a gilt illustration of a sailing vessel; the rear boards bear the gilt Seal of the Sultan of Borneo. The spines are decorated and lettered in gilt.

The set is extensively illustrated with engraved and lithographic plates, woodcut illustrations, and folding maps and charts. All five folding maps/charts called for in the set are present, including the hand-colored map. 

Volume I contains xvii + 385 pages; Volume II contains xi + 395 pages. 
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Narrative of Events in Borneo and Celebes is a substantial firsthand account of events in Southeast Asia during the formative years of James Brooke's rule in Sarawak. It draws heavily upon the journals of James Brooke (1803–1868), the first White Rajah of Sarawak, together with Captain Rodney Mundy's account of British naval operations aboard H.M.S. Iris.

The narrative covers events of the 1840s in Borneo, Sarawak, Brunei, Labuan and the Celebes, including Brooke's activities in Sarawak; relations and negotiations with Malay and indigenous rulers and communities; regional trade and politics; British naval involvement; campaigns against groups characterized by the British at the time as pirates; the British occupation of Labuan; and Mundy's voyages and observations in the region.

It is therefore both a nineteenth-century travel and exploration narrative and an important contemporary primary source for the history of Sarawak, Brunei and British colonial and naval activity in Southeast Asia. The illustrations and folding maps provide contemporary visual and geographical documentation of the region.

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Condition description, continued: 

The page edges of both volumes are noticeably darkened and soiled, with uneven discoloration consistent with age and long-term handling and storage.

Internally there is age toning and scattered to sometimes substantial foxing and spotting. Foxing is especially noticeable on some preliminary and terminal leaves, plates, maps and adjacent pages. Individual pages vary considerably: many text pages are considerably cleaner than the more heavily foxed plates and end matter.

Volume I: The preliminary leaves, including the portrait frontispiece and surrounding pages, show noticeable foxing. There is a small old rectangular label/sticker on an endpaper. The endpapers themselves show considerably more age than those in Volume II. The covers and spine show rubbing, darkening and wear. The folding maps are present.

Volume II: The covers show rubbing, staining/soiling, edge wear and considerable spine wear. The endpapers are conspicuously cleaner and newer-looking than the adjacent nineteenth-century paper. This suggests that the endpapers may have been replaced as part of an old binding repair, possibly when the volume was rehinged or recased in its original cloth. The exact restoration history is unknown, so this is being disclosed as an observation rather than represented as a documented repair.

There is a rectangular roughened/abraded area on one Volume II endpaper, apparently where a former label or similar item was removed.

One of the folding maps in Volume II has a small tear at or near a fold, shown in the photographs. The map remains present and usable. The folding maps and other illustrated leaves also show varying degrees of foxing, age toning and handling wear.

There is evidence of old binding/endpaper work, particularly in Volume II. I cannot establish when this work was done or precisely how extensive it was. The original decorated cloth covers have been retained. I would therefore not describe this set as unrestored.

Both volumes remain together as books and the covers remain attached; the bindings are secure overall, considering their age and the visible old repair. No claim is made that the bindings or endpapers are entirely untouched originals.

No maps are missing. All five folding maps/charts called for are present. Other age-related imperfections may be present consistent with a heavily used set published in 1848. Photographs form an important part of the condition description.