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Trade or public edition of Wilkes's narrative of the expedition directed to the general reader. The expedition roved from the southern most tip of South America to the Oregon coast, through the south and north Pacific and Antarctic waters. In the course of the expedition many locations were visited: Brazil, Patagonia, Chile, Peru, Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, Borneo, the Philippines, Singapore with extended stays at Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. This and all eds later than 1845 appeared without an atlas.

The United States Exploring Expedition circumnavigated the globe under the command of Wilkes between the summer of 1838 and the summer of 1842. Almost immediately upon his return, in July 1842 Wilkes began work on the narrative, drawing on all of the data and logs assembled by the members of the expedition. This took two years, but by August 1844 the first volume was in the press, and the whole set was ready for binding by the end of the year.