Three Centuries of Voyages

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“Ross Bank Magnetic Observatory” (detail); see catalogue no. 43

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Three Centuries of Voyages: 1558-1861

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1.

ALVARES, Francisco.

Historiale description de l’Ethiopie, contenant vraye relation des terres, & païs du gran Roy, & Empereur Prete-Ian…

Small octavo, italic and roman letter, woodcut of the stars of the Southern Cross and six plans of Ethiopian churches; 18th-century English red morocco. Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1558.

With Corsali’s depiction of the Southern Cross

A delightful copy of the first edition in French, in a most attractive English binding. Alvares’ book includes Corsali’s description of the constellation of the Southern Cross along with the famous image.

First published in Portuguese in 1540, Alvares gave the earliest first-hand description of Ethiopia by a known European. Ethiopia in the sixteenth century stood for something even more exotic than it actually was, often appearing in early texts as a place as far away geographically and culturally as it was possible to imagine.

Importantly the book also includes the description of the first identification of the Southern Cross. Alvares’s narrative is preceded in this edition (though not in the original Portuguese version) by the two letters of Andrea Corsali, included here because this Florentine traveller ended his days in Ethiopia.

In 1515 Corsali, an Italian under the patronage of the Medici family, accompanied a Portuguese voyage into the Southern and Indian Oceans, in the course of which he observed the curious behaviour of an unrecorded group of stars, which he described and illustrated in a letter – the first of the two printed here – narrating his voyage that he sent back to his patron Giuliano de Medici in Florence. Corsali’s description and illustration of the constellation was the first to outline its shape in detail as a cross: after the publication of his Lettera the term “cross” or “crosiers” recurs frequently and in 1606, for example, Quiros, on his quest for the Southern Continent, instructed his captains to ascertain their position at night by the “crucero”. The narrative also contains a tantalising reference to a continental land in the vicinity of New Guinea, which alone would make the Lettera an important element in the canon of pre-Cook discovery of Australia and the Pacific.

Corsali’s two letters appeared in Italian in 1516 and 1517 respectively and both are of utmost rarity; the important 1516 letter is known in only three copies, one of which at one time belonged, as did this book, to the English collector William Beckford. This copy subsequently belonged to an impressive list of collectors: Joannes Gennadius; Henry J.B. Clements; the explorer Wilfred Thesiger; Henry Winterton; and finally the great collector of Ethiopian material Bent Juel-Jensen, with his distinctive Amharic bookplate.

Alden, ‘European Americana’, 558/2; BM STC (Dutch), 5; Borba de Moraes, I, p. 31 (Spanish edition only); Fumagalli, 610; Gay, 2603; Streit, XV, 1589; Voet, Plantin, 53B.

2.

LA POPELINIERE, Henri Lancelot-Voisin de.

Les Trois Mondes par le Seigneur de la Popelliniere.

Small quarto, folding world map, title-page vignette, some toning and browning, the title-page with a neat old repair and an early owner’s signature; an excellent copy in contemporary vellum, a few neat repairs & some stains, spine lettered in ink, endpapers renewed; in a modern folding morocco case, gilt. Paris, l’Olivier de Pierre l’Huillier, rue Sainct Jaques, 1582.

Colonising the “incogneu” southern land

Very rare, first edition, first issue: a serious sixteenth-century proposal detailing the author’s utopian dream of creating French colonies in the Great South Land beyond the Straits of Magellan, which he claims is a habitable land larger than America and richer too. The work is ‘un véritable projet colonialiste en vue de la Terra Australis’ (Anne-Marie Beaulieu, Les Trois Mondes de la Popelinière). The work includes a highly attractive map of the world based on the original of Ortelius in 1570, even down to the detail of the legend from Cicero (here translated into French).

Popelinière (1541-1608) was a Protestant speculative geographer known for his interest in the “incogneu” world. His utopian project for French expansion in the only vaguely theorised unknown worlds of the southern hemisphere marks him out as one of the foundation writers of the long French interest in the region, interest that would culminate in the voyages of Bougainville and his successors. In this tradition, as Frank Lestringant has noted, Les Trois Mondes was the pioneer work to forsake the northern confines of the New World to the ambitions of the other European powers, preferring to turn to ‘the myth of a southern continent’ for the author’s ‘dreams of empire and revenge’ (Mapping the Renaissance World, p. 118).

Even more extraordinarily, Popelinière is thought to have mounted the first genuine attempt to found just such a colony, sailing from La Rochelle in May 1589 with three tiny ships. John Dunmore writes that they ‘got no further than Cap Blanc in West Africa, where dissensions and despondency made him abandon the expedition and return to France. The captains of the two other ships, Richardiere and Trepagne, decided to continue to South America, but only succeeded in reaching the coast of Brazil. A century and a half was to elapse before another attempt was made’ (French Explorers in the Pacific, I, p.

196). Despite its inglorious end, this was the first French expedition to search explicitly for the Southern Land.

Les Trois Mondes energetically discusses the so-called three worlds of Renaissance geography, a model which had been developed by Mercator. The three worlds, then, were simply the old (‘vieil’), the new (‘neuf’), and the unknown (‘incogneu’). Basing his work on the writings of Guillaume Postel, André Thevet and Jean de Léry, in Les Trois Mondes Popelinière discussed ancient and modern discoveries, concluding with an open petition to the French government to colonise the australe lands, having shown that the Americas were too politically fraught to allow French expansion there. Colonisation, he argued, would provide an answer to the grave religious, political and economic crisis in France (in 1627, nonetheless, the French embarked on their American colonies).

For Popelinière it was Magellan’s voyage around Cape Horn and into the Pacific, not Colombus nor Vespucci, which pointed to the future. His extraordinary thesis was that the French should seek to colonise the “virgin” southern land, where they could be guaranteed not to be repulsed by the armies of the other European powers, cautioning that they would have to act with speed and determination. Only in so doing, he writes, could they atone for having ignored the example set to them since Columbus. Other travellers and geographers of the sixteenth century had discussed and disputed the existence of the hypothetical “South Land”, but Popelinière was the first to cut the Gordian knot and announce that it should be colonised, making this work an important and compelling forerunner of the rush to the South Seas. It could be considered the pioneer practical exposition of a search which would last for two more centuries, until the myths of the Great South Land were finally exploded on Cook’s second voyage.

Rather than an anthology of voyage narratives (such as those of his near contemporaries Hakluyt or Purchas for example), the book is a synthesis of known reports in the service of a definite plan, and indeed one of its cleverer aspects is that La Popelinière treats much of what he writes as definitively proven, rather than speculative. Also notable is how far he wants to distance himself from the armchair: “I am writing as a sailor” (“Je parle icy en matelot”), he writes at the beginning of his introduction.

The first section of the book traces the voyages and explorations of antiquity, and is chiefly an attempt to unravel the early discussion of the new world and the antipodes through authors such as Plato and Saint Augustine. The following two parts are a survey of the New World and its conquest, with particular attention to the European colonies in the Americas, the voyages of Columbus, the circumnavigation of the Magellan expedition, and a fleeting reference to Sir Francis Drake who had returned to England in 1580, two years previously. The whole text builds towards a concluding section which deals with the “unknown” world proper, the rationale behind the entire book; that is, La Popelinière dwells on the known facts of the European colonies in the new world to show the folly of French pretensions in the area. At the same time, so little is known about the worlds beyond the Americas, that there is little point in speculation; action is required, and the political will to explore the Pacific beyond Cape Horn.

It is frankly difficult to quantify or explain just how early this work is in terms of the search for the southern continent: it was published in 1582, over a decade before Quiros actually sailed with Mendana, and 26 years before he began issuing his famous memorials calling for his colony in “Austrialia” (see catalogue number 6). Popelinière’s account might also be compared to the famous book by Gonneville, the Mémoires touchant l’établissement d’une Mission Chrestienne dans le Troisième Monde (1663; it is noteworthy that Gonneville used the phrase “troisième monde” in his later title).

In 1584, La Popelinière returned to the fray with another work, L’Amiral de France, a direct petition for French naval expansion and colonisation. There is an excellent introduction to Popelinière’s thought in the recent scholarly edition of Les Trois Mondes de La Popelinière (Beaulieu, Geneva, 1997).

Alden, ‘European Americana’, 582/51; Borba de Moraes, pp. 684-5; Church, 129; John Carter Brown, I, p. 293 (purchased in 1846); Polak, 5311; Sabin, 39008.

3.

GONZALEZ de MENDOZA, Juan.

The Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdome of China.

Octavo, [8], 410 pp., owner’s seal on title-page (which is slightly dust-soiled), a few leaves a little browned, cut close by the binder (as often) affecting some headlines and catchwords, small rust-hole in T4 resulting in the loss of a few letters; nonetheless an excellent copy of this rarity, bound without final blank in period-style speckled calf, spine gilt in compartments between raised bands; calf bookform box. London, Printed by J. Wolfe for Edward White, 1588.

The first English book on China: from the library of Charles Boxer

Rare and desirable: the first book on China printed in England, and the first work in English devoted exclusively to China. This attractive copy of a remarkably important book is from the famous library of Charles Boxer, with his distinctive red seal on the title-page. Prolific writer, scholar, orientalist, intelligence officer, and Professor of History at King’s College London, Boxer was also one of the great collectors of his time, and assembled an important library of books on China the far East, and the East Indies.

This is the very rare first English translation of Juan González de Mendoza’s history of the Chinese empire and beyond. Mendoza (1545-1618) was a Spanish Augustinian priest who travelled to Mexico in 1562; from here he developed a keen interest in the mission to China. Although he never joined the mission, Mendoza amassed a large volume of material gathered by Augustinian Franciscan missionaries to the Philippines and China, as well as gaining access to the impressive collection of Chinese works acquired by Martin de Rada in Fukien in 1575.

Mendoza’s book was translated into English by Robert Parke, at the suggestion of Richard Hakluyt, from the Madrid edition of 1586, the revised and most complete edition following a first publication in Rome in 1585. Löwendahl notes its rapid translation into seven languages and impact on the European imagination of China ‘The reading public was small, and it is probably no exaggeration to say that Mendoza’s book had been read by the majority of well-educated Europeans by the end at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Its influence was naturally enormous.’ The first major survey of China, 33 editions have been identified of the book in the thirty years following its first publication.

The English edition was by far the most significant in terms of its reach and influence. It happens to be an exceptionally rare book today.

This was ‘the most influential and detailed work on China prepared in the sixteenth century… Its popularity may be accounted for in part by the great and unsatisfied demand which existed everywhere in Europe for a comprehensive and authoritative survey of China in the vernacular languages… In fact, the authority of Mendoza’s book was so great that it became the point of departure and the basis of comparison for all subsequent European works on China written before the eighteenth century…’ (Lach).

Alden, ‘European Americana’, 588/39; Church, 134; Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, 13; Lach ‘Asia in the Making of Europe’, I, pp.

743-4 and passim; Lowendahl, ‘China Illustrata Nova’, 13 (Rome), 23 (Paris); Palau, 105513; Sabin, 27783 (“so rare that we have never seen it”); Streit, IV, 2000.

4.

HAKLUYT, Richard.

The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over-land…

Three volumes in two, folio, woodcut historiated and decorative initials and head- and tailpieces; a little staining or dust-soiling, last leaf of the first volume the worst affected; small hole through text on penultimate leaf in the same volume; in early 19th-century English blue straight-grain morocco, spines panelled in gilt between raised bands incorporating anchor devices, sides panelled in blind and gilt, all edges gilt, rose-pink silk flyleaves and doublures within blue morocco outer borders; a handsome set. London, Bishop, 1598–1600.

The classic Elizabethan collection of voyage accounts

One of the classics of travel literature and the first English collection of voyages; Hakluyt’s magnificent work will always be the primary source for the history of early English exploration, as well as one of the gems of Elizabethan letters.

This is the much preferred second edition, greatly expanded from the single-volume original version of 1589 and effectively a new work – the first edition contained about 700,000 words, the second about 1,700,000. The first volume discusses voyages to the north and northeast; the second volume, to the south and southeast; the third volume, almost tripled in size from the first edition, the Americas.

It is significant that by the time of this revised second edition, Hakluyt was able to include the first tentative forays of the English into the South Seas, whether round Cape Horn or through the Straits of Magellan. The third volume of 1600 includes most of the New World material, with notices of early voyages into the Pacific, notably in the section entitled “A Catalogue of divers English voyages, some intended and some performed to the Streights of Magellan, the South Sea… to the headland of California, and to the Northwest…”. Printed here are reports of the voyages of Drake and several of his compatriots, an early account of the important 1586 voyage of Thomas Cavendish, and discussions of major voyages which were destined for the South Seas but failed to round Cape Horn, including those of Edward Fenton (intended for China), Robert Withrington, and the failed 1591 second voyage of Cavendish.

Volume 1 of this copy has the first state of the title-page (dated 1598 and mentioning Essex’s “famous victorie” at Cadiz in 1596). The seven leaves of text describing the affair were excised from most copies of the book at Queen Elizabeth’s behest, following the disgrace of the Earl of Essex; here, as sometimes, they are present in the version printed to complete the censored copies, probably in about 1720. As with virtually all copies, the book does not have a world map which had been intended to accompany the third volume but was only actually issued with a handful of copies.

This is an excellent copy of this great book, with engraved armorial bookplates of an earlier collector David Hodgson, and later bookplates of G.W. Hartley.

Borba de Moraes, pp.391-2; Church, 322 (second issue of volume I); Hill, 743,745; James Ford Bell, H10; JCB (3) , I:372-4; Palau, 112039; Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, p.318; Printing and the Mind of Man, 105; Quinn, pp. 4907; Sabin, 29596-7; STC, 12626.

5.

LINSCHOTEN, Jan Huyghen van.

His Discours of Voyages into the East and West Indies. Devided into Foure Bookes.

Small folio, with39 folding maps and plates (12 required for this edition and 27 extra plates from the original Dutch edition), four small maps in the text; early shoulder-notes in ink throughout, many corresponding with a manuscript page of subject index bound in to follow the printed index; a few spots and marks, some restoration at margins; just three maps cut close by binder at left margin; overall a very good copy in contemporary calf, gilt spine rubbed, brown leather label. London, John Wolfe, 1598.

One of the great early illustrated travel books

The rare and important first edition in English of this superbly illustrated travel book, the major source for any history of voyaging to the East Indies, and inevitably towards Australia.

The most significant description of the East Indies in the Age of Discovery, this was essentially the work which launched full-scale trade to Asia by the Dutch and the English.

Together with Richard Hakluyt’s anthology (see catalogue number 4), it was also the most important collection of voyages and travels in English to appear during the 16th century. It was in fact the suggestion of the great English voyage chronicler Hakluyt himself that led to the publication of this English translation, based on the Dutch edition of 1596. Linschoten’s ‘avaricious thirst for knowledge… enabled him to get detailed information of land and sea as far afield as the Spice Islands and China’ (Penrose), and he was an informed observer of the gradual decline of Portuguese power in the East Indies and the relaxing of the Portuguese stranglehold on trade routes and monopolies.

He met and debriefed numerous travellers including men like Dirck Gerritszoon Pomp, also known as Dirck “China”, the sailor who had been the first known Dutchman to visit China and Japan.

The first part of his book gives a general description of the various countries of the East, with accounts of customs, spices, costumes, modes of travel, etc., and is wonderfully illustrated with engraved plates, panoramas and folding town plans. The second part includes sailing directions and general advice to traders to the East; the third and shortest part deals with the West Indies and America, but is not as out of place as it might seem: the VOC or Dutch East India Company had its counterpart in the WIC, or Dutch West India Company; theoretically the Pacific coast of America was the province of the WIC, but as early as Tasman’s voyage there were attempts to link the two by trade routes, also associated with the search for a southern continent below both America and Asia.

This is the first English edition, the best form of the book, with all its maps in the correct English issue form (which is not always the case); in addition, this copy has a substantial complement of 27 additional folding engraved plates from the thirty-six issued in the 1596 Dutch edition, which together provide a striking series of illustrations of the sixteenth-century East Indies. These extra plates, with titling captions in both Latin and

Dutch, include scenes of the East Indies, including Java, as well as of China, and India.

Several of the plates depict activities in Goa, while some show Portuguese travellers on land and on sea.

These add substantially to the series of maps and views published as part of the book, which are themselves of great importance. Apart from anything else, the engravings commissioned for this English publication include the so-called “Spice Islands map” (“Insulae Moluccae celeberrimae”) which did not appear in the previous non-English editions. Originally issued separately by Plancius about 1594, it is here re-engraved by Robert Beckit.

Based on a collection of charts and rutters which Plancius acquired in Lisbon in 1592 from Bartoleomeu Lasso, it shows the islands in great detail, identifying some of their most important products. The tip of the continent marked ‘Beach’ appears to the west (see further below) while New Guinea has a caption discussing Andrea Corsali and his description of it as Terra de Picconacosi – probably a corruption of the “Terra Psittacorum” or Land of Parrots which appears on a few earlier maps including the Plancius world map which appears at the start of this book – which Corsali believed probably formed part of the Southern continent. David Parry (Cartography of the East Indian Islands, p. 85) has described this as ‘one of the most fabulous [maps] ever produced of the East Indies and one of the rarest, [which] shows the Spice Islands in a level of detail never previously seen’.

The book was to play a vital role in the history of Dutch expansion in the East Indies, helping to send on their way a whole series of Dutch, French and English fleets to the Spice Islands and beyond to China and Japan by its emphasis on the riches of the area and the slackening of Portuguese control. Indeed the fine world map by Plancius which begins the volume also shows the tip of a southern continent with its traditional name (dating back to Marco Polo) of “Beach” and describing it as “Provincia aurifera”, while in his text Linschoten makes frequent reference to natural mineral wealth. As Kees Zandvliet points out (Golden Opportunities in Geopolitics, in “Terra Australis”), ‘In 1622 Governor-General Coen, fitting out an expedition, wrote the following lines about the Southern Continent: ‘According to the works of Jan Huygen (van Linschoten) and the opinions of various others, there is gold to be found in several places on this Southern Continent. You should as far as possible investigate the truth of these claims…’. Linschoten’s reports of precious metals in the area of New Guinea were directly responsible for inspiring the voyage of the Duyfken to the southeast of the Moluccas; she did not bring back precious metals, but did take home, for the first time, irrefutable cartographic information about Australia following her discovery of part of the east coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria’.

The book was an essential guide for the sailors themselves; it became “the navigator’s vade-mecum for the Eastern Seas” and confirmed Linschoten as “the leading geographical figure in Renaissance Holland” (Penrose). It is said that for over a century a copy of the book was placed on every Dutch ship sailing to the Indies.

Alden, ‘European Americana’, 598/57; Borba de Moraes, 488; Bosch, 41; Church, 321; Hill, p.182; Lust, ‘Western Books on China’, 340; Sabin, 41374; see also Penrose, pp. 210-204, etc; Shirley, G.LIN-2a; STC, 15691; Terra Australis, catalogue numbers 18 and 20, pp. 71, 91, etc.

6.

QUIROS, Pedro Fernandez de.

[Memorial:] Señor. El Capitan Pedro Fernandez de Quirós. La parte incógnita Austral es justamente quarta del Globo…

Folio, 314 x 217 mm, 4 numbered leaves; inscribed in ink on the last leaf “curioso” (!) and “el Capitan quiros”. Madrid, 1612.

Quirós’ memorial “la parte incógnita austral” of 1612: the unknown southern land represents a quarter of the globe.

An exceptional rarity: just three other copies of this original printed Presentation Memorial by Quirós have been recorded (Mitchell Library, Sydney; Huntington Library, San Marino, California; Biblioteca del Palacio Real, Madrid). The Mitchell Library and Huntington Library copies were acquired from the London dealer Maggs Bros. in the 1920s (catalogues 413 and 429).

The Quirós Presentation Memorials represent the earliest printed record of discovery and plans for settlement of a Southern Continent, the discoveries that Quirós named “Austrialia del Espíritu Santo”. Pedro Fernández de Quirós prepared his printed Memorials as a series of proposals addressed to King Philip III of Spain and presented to the king and his councils between 1607 and 1614. In them he petitioned to be given the command of an expedition of discovery and colonisation to settle the lands that he had found.

Altogether as many as fifty Memorials were prepared, but most of them were in manuscript. Just 14 Presentation Memorials were printed for limited distribution, at Quirós’ own expense.

In this carefully composed Memorial, the twelfth in the series of 14 such printed Memorials now identified, Quirós renews his campaign after enduring a year of silence imposed by the king. He enumerates in 38 numbered paragraphs the main points of the various arguments he has put forward in seeking royal permission to make further discoveries and establish a colonial settlement in the new southern land.

As the Quirós bibliographer Kelly summarises, ‘It deals with the extent of his discoveries in the Austral region, his proposals for a settlement there, the arms and ammunition required, the hope of founding a city which would require artists and skilled labourers, the building of small ships for further exploration, the mining of gold and silver, the spiritual and temporal benefits to be gained, the missionary friars who had volunteered, and the strategic value of communications between the Austral Lands and the Philippines, Peru, and New Spain’.

We know from a note on the Mitchell Library copy that the decision was made by the king and/or council in response to this Memorial to give Quirós 100 ducats a month, as well as a once-off payment of 6000 ducats to meet his obligations, and that he was to be told that the king regarded him very highly.

The QuirÓs memorials

The Quirós Memorials, the series of petitions to colonise “Austrialia del Espíritu Santo”, are the foundation documents for the history of the Pacific, the search for a Southern Continent, the discovery of the New World in the south and ultimately the discovery and settlement of Australia and New Zealand.

The Memorials are a series of different petitions to the King, each of which further argues the case, with new data and plans: they do not, as is often misunderstood, each simply make the same argument. This misconception may have been caused by the fact that the text of just one of the Memorials is seen almost exclusively in all the subsequent publications and dissemination, that of the so-called “Eighth Memorial”, the one Memorial that was leaked outside Spanish court circles in 1612.

Even the expert Carlos Sanz allows this misunderstanding to continue when he speaks of “the Quirós Memorial” as though the Memorials form a single entity: ‘The era of the great geographical discoveries, opened with Columbus’ first transatlantic voyage, closed with those announced in the Quirós Memorial. Two great oceans (the Atlantic and the Pacific), an immense continent (America), the Philippine Islands and finally Australia are the achievements to be put to the account of this great maritime adventure, the greatest known to the centuries… This work was the sole reason for the search carried out by the maritime powers of Europe during nearly two centuries for the vast, legendary, unknown Terra Australis… Apart from Columbus’ Letter announcing his arrival in the Indies (America) [there is] no printed document that has counted for so much in the history of discovery and navigation… It has been justly said that the three documents that have most decisively influenced the course of universal history are: the Bible, Columbus’ Letter and the Quirós Memorial…’ (Carlos Sanz, Australia, its Discovery and Name, Madrid, 1964).

In fact the Memorials, produced between 1607 and 1614, differ substantially from each other, and tell a developing story.

Pedro FernÁndez de QuirÓs

Pedro Fernández de Quirós is of fundamental importance to the history of exploration in the south. As Alexander Dalrymple observed in 1770, ‘The discovery of the Southern Continent, whenever, and by whomsoever it may be completely effected, is in justice due to this immortal name’.

The belief that a vast Southern Continent – the Ophir of King Solomon, the lands re-

ported by Marco Polo and golden islands reputed to have been known to the Incas – lay somewhere in the South Pacific had inspired Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa and Alvaro de Mendaña y Neyra to sail westward from Peru in 1567, a venture which resulted in the discovery of the Solomons, the possible outliers, it was supposed, of Terra Australis.

Quirós’ conviction that the Southern Continent must exist had its origins in the observations he made as pilot on Mendaña’s attempt to revisit the Solomons in 1595. This was a disastrous failure, but Quirós, through a superb feat of navigation, brought a starving remnant of the expedition over unknown seas to Manila and resolved to search for the continent that must, he believed, lurk somewhere beyond the elusive islands.

In 1605 he set out from Callao, searching again for the Solomons but arriving instead at the land he named Austrialia del Espiritu Santo, a large island in the New Hebrides.

‘Here, he was sure, where he proclaimed the city of New Jerusalem, was the much-desired continent. Sickness, at the critical moment, infirmity of purpose, unreliable subordinates, finally the cruel luck with the wind, drove him away before a settlement was made, in a vast sweep north that took him to Mexico in October 1606… Quirós returned to Spain, ceaselessly and fruitlessly to importune crown and councils, with memorials and charts, for still another expedition. The Spanish effort was over. His memorials, glowing with their confident transmutation of hopes into matter of fact, spread through Europe.

Quirós, who had discovered a dozen islands, became the publicist of the continent…’ ( J.C. Beaglehole, The life of Captain James Cook, 1974, pp. 111-2).

Present-day rarity of the Memorials

The Presentation Memorials – which are to be distinguished from the scores of later, derivative printings which appeared throughout Europe after the leaking of one of these original Memorials – are among the most valuable of all printed voyage documents. They have always represented a grail for collectors, both institutional and private.

When David Scott Mitchell acquired in one transaction, a century ago, the entire collection of Alfred Lee (over 10,000 books, paintings, pamphlets, prints and drawings) he did so despite a duplication rate estimated at over 90%. He acknowledged that the purchase, his last major transaction, was made solely in order to acquire for his own collection, and subsequently for the state of NSW, the Banks Endeavour Journal and two printed Memorials by Quirós.

Mitchell’s fellow collector and philanthropist Sir William Dixson shared Mitchell’s passion: he was always ‘an assiduous collector of Quirós Memorials and of any documents relating to Quirós and his voyages. By the time of his death in 1952 he had acquired no less than eight printed Presentation editions, most being different from those published

by Zaragoza. For these he paid £650 to £1000 sterling each…’ (Dunn). These Memorials were acquired by Dixson for prices that are among the highest for any such voyage material in the inter- and immediately post-war period, and demonstrate the extent to which the Memorials have always been valued.

Dunn, Quiros Memorials, 1612A, p.47 (MLS1/50); Kelly, Calendar of documents, 711 (48 in list); Medina (BHA); Palau, 341; Pinochet de la Barra, Pedro Fernández de Quiros: Memoriales de las Indias Australes, , Memorial 48.

7.

SCHOUTEN, Willem Corneliszoon.

Journal ou Description du merveilleux voyage de Guilliaume Schouten, Hollandois natif de Hoorn, fait es années 1615, 1616 & 1617.

Small quarto, with nine engraved folding maps and plates, some light staining and a blemish in a few upper margins but a very good copy in period style crushed morocco, spine gilt in compartments between raised bands. Amsterdam, Guillaume Janson Blaeu, 1618.

Last 17th-century expedition to search for Terra Australis from the east.

First edition in French of this rare and important book, preceded only by the original Dutch versions of the same year (Amsterdam and Arnhem issues). Very many editions were to follow.

This is the celebrated account of the Le Maire and Schouten expedition westward across the Pacific to the Indies, during which they discovered a new navigable passage south of Cape Horn. The maps, and particularly the well-known folding chart of a largely empty Pacific Ocean, demonstrate the magnitude of the achievement of Schouten and Le Maire in crossing the ocean from east to west, in order to reach the Spice islands without straying into the territories controlled by the monopolistic Dutch East India Company.

Schouten and Le Maire named Cape Horn when they rounded it in 1616, visited several of the Tuamotus, and were the first westerners to visit the Tonga islands. They then coasted New Ireland and New Guinea on their way to the Spice Islands and Batavia.

The importance of the book to contemporary geographical understanding cannot be overstated; it was ‘the last seventeenth-century expedition to search for Terra Australis from the east’ (Schilder). The voyage was made under the auspices of the newly formed group of Dutch traders known as the Australian Company, set up to compete with the Dutch East India Company and to search for the elusive Terra Australis. It was of great importance for the future history of discovery in that it proved the existence of a passage from the southern Atlantic into the Pacific, south of the Straits of Magellan round Cape Horn, and therefore finally demonstrated that the supposed Southern Continent, contrary to the maps of Ortelius and Mercator, did not extend to the Straits of Magellan.

Although this account presents itself as Schouten’s journal of the voyage, as Schilder points out ‘the facts were misrepresented. It appeared from it that all the discoveries of the expedition owed their origin to Schouten and that he had a financial share in the expedition amounting to half the capital…’. A later edition of the voyage published in 1622 revealed that Schouten had overstated his importance, and this supposedly authentic account of the voyage was mostly lifted from the ship’s log kept by Jacob Le Maire.

This edition, produced in Amsterdam by the publisher and cartographer Willem Blaeu, is one of two variant French-language issues of 1618 noted by the bibliographer Tiele (no priority has been assigned). Tiele identifies as many as 38 later editions of the Schouten narrative printed in the Netherlands alone (Latin, Spanish and English editions also quickly appeared).

Not in Landwehr, ‘VOC’; Tiele , 984; Tiele-Muller, 37.

8.

PURCHAS, Samuel.

Purchas his Pilgrimes In five bookes. [and] Purchas his Pilgrimage.

Five volumes, folio, 7 double-page engraved maps, and 88 smaller maps or illustrations in the text; a few marginal repairs, some maps just trimmed by binder at margins, Virginia and New England maps in in the fourth volume expertly backed on linen; generally in fine condition throughout; crushed morocco gilt by Pratt. London, W. Stansby for H. Fetherstone, 1625-1626.

The classic anthology of exploration: into the Pacific

A splendid set (in a handsome binding by the London binder Pratt) of the monumental sequel to Hakluyt’s collection of voyages, in which some 1200 separate narratives ‘hold many a stirring tale of bravery at sea, ice under a midnight sun in Arctic seas or, far away south, under a tropic moon or brazen noontide sun. They tell of parching thirst, and freezing cold, of chill winds that searched men to the bone, and of the hot breath of desert sands that scorched their flesh and drove them crazed to death…’ (Waters, p. 260).

‘This is one of the fullest and most important collections of voyages and travels in the English language’ (Church). As the Hill catalogue notes, ‘At the death of Hakluyt there was left a large collection of voyages in manuscript which came into the hands of Purchas, who added to them many more voyages and travels, of Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese explorers as well as of English travellers. Purchas followed the general plan of Hakluyt, but he frequently put the accounts into his own words… This fine collection includes the accounts of Cortes and Pizarro, Drake, Cavendish, John and Richard Hawkins, Quiros, Magellan, van Noort, Spilbergen, and Barents as well as the categories of Portuguese voyages to the East Indies, Jesuit voyages to China and Japan, East India Company voyages, end the expeditions of the Muscovy Company…’.

A slight but most important passage notes the first authenticated visit to Australia, by Willem Janszoon on the Duyfken in 1605. As Donald Lach has pointed out, ‘no published account of their voyage appeared during the seventeenth century. The English factor John Saris, however, reported from Bantam both the departure of the Duyfken and its return to Banda in 1606. When published by Purchas in 1625 it was probably Europe’s first printed notice of Australia: “The eighteenth of November 1605 here departed a small Pinnasse of the Flemmings, for the discovery of the Island caled Nova Guinea, which, as it is said, affordeth great store of Gold.” “The fifteenth of June 1606, here arrived Nockhoda Tingall a Cling-man [Kling, Malay for Indian] from Bandas, in Java Juncke… he told me that the Flemmings Pinasse which went upon discovery for Nova Ginny, was returned to Banda, having found the Island: but in sending their men on shore to intreate of trade, there were nine of them killed by the Heathens, which are man-eaters; so they were constrained to return, finding no good to be done there”.’

In one of the most celebrated episodes of English literature, Coleridge was reading from Marco Polo in his copy of Purchas when his self-prescribed opium took him into the reverie famously interrupted by the “gentleman from Porlock”. ‘In Xandu did Cublai Can build a stately Pallace, encompassing sixteen miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightfull streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure …’.

A detailed list of the contents and issue-points can be supplied on request.

Alden, ‘European Americana’, 625/173, 626/101; Arents, 158; Borba de Moraes, II, p.692-3; Church, 401A; Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, 1940f; Hill, 1403; Sabin, 6682-86; STC, 20509/20508.5; Streit, ‘Bibliotheca Missionum’, I, 423.

9.

[CARSTENSZ] JANSSON, Jan.

Mar del Zur Hispanis Mare Pacificum.

Handcoloured map, 465 x 573 mm. (sheet size), in very good condition, mounted. Amsterdam, Frederick de Wit, 1650.

One of the earliest maps to show discoveries in northern Australia

Early Dutch map depicting the expanse of the Pacific Ocean, one of few maps of the period to show the discoveries made in the Gulf of Carpentaria by Jan Carstensz in the Pera in 1623. The Carstensz expedition, which explored south from New Guinea across Torres Strait, was responsible for the earliest published European charting of any part of the Australian coast. Previously, detail of Dutch discoveries in northern Australia had been incorporated in the periphery of maps of Southeast Asia. This map by Jansson marks a significant break from tradition, situating the preliminary Australian landfalls on the eastern edge of the largely uncharted Pacific.

This map by Jansson is probably based on the famously rare Blaeu map of 1635 titled India Quae Orientalis Dicitur et Insulae Adiacentes that lists the Carstensz landfalls on the Australian coastline. Given the formidable rarity of Blaeu’s map (Clancy notes only three known copies) this Jansson map is one of the few realistically attainable maps to show the Carstensz discoveries.

Although actually published after Tasman’s return to Holland in 1644, this map is nonetheless a significant record of pre-Tasman discoveries. The period around 1650, in the immediate aftermath of Tasman’s return, saw a flurry of interest regarding the South Seas from Dutch cartographers, with Jansson publishing not only the present map of the Carstensz voyage but also a Tasman-related map in the same year, the latter revising a Hondius map, Polus Antarcticus. Overall, given Dutch recalcitrance in releasing information of strategic and mercantile importance, any record of northern Australia published in the mid seventeenth-century is uncommon and of lasting historical significance for the revelation of the continent.

Jansson’s chart is of further interest regarding lands imagined to exist deep in the southern hemisphere. It records a long group of islands situated in the southern waters of the Pacific (here noted by Jansson to have been discovered by Hernando Gallego in 1576).

Gallego served as a pilot on the 1567-69 Pacific voyage of Alvaro de Mendaña, during which the Solomon Islands and Guadalcanal were discovered, amongst others. Gallego ‘grossly underestimated the archipelago’s distance from Peru, creating a misleading impression of the extent of the Pacific’ (Howgego). The depiction of the islands on this map reflects this original navigational error.

Clancy, p.84; Koeman’s Atlantes Neerlandici, 0600:1; Tooley, 749; Wagner ‘Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America’, 359.

10.

FARIA Y SOUSA, Manuel de.

Asia Portuguesa.

Three volumes, quarto, each with an engraved ornamental title-page; a complete set with 19 engraved and woodblock folding plates (one in duplicate, for a total of 20 plates), numerous woodblock portraits throughout the text; some browning and intermittent water-staining, early ownership inscriptions on title-pages affecting paper; a very good set in attractive eighteenthcentury speckled calf, spines gilt with raised bands and original black leather labels. Lisboa, Henrique Valente de Oliveira & A. Craesbeeck, 1666-1675.

The Portuguese in Asia: the customs of India, China, and Southeast Asia.

Rare and influential history of the Portuguese in Asia, including rich and vibrant descriptions of ritual and customs in India, China, and Southeast Asia. Manuel Faria y Sousa (1590-1649) wrote this history in the tradition of the sixteenth-century masterpiece Décadas da Asia by João de Barros; Boies Penrose characterised him as ‘the last writer to attempt a chronicle of the Portuguese empire in the grand manner…’ (Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, p. 283).

Avid chronicler and polyglot, Faria y Sousa lived in Madrid for most of his life in the service of the Spanish Crown. Here he collected books, dispatches and manuscript materials of all kinds in preparation of his chronicle of the Portuguese empire across the globe.

Accordingly, Asia Portuguesa is of significant historical value for the detailed list of works included in the third volume: ‘Included in this bibliography are most of the books then in print which related to Asia, as well as manuscripts prepared by officials and missionaries in the field’ (Lach and Van Kley, p.355).

Like many contemporary Portuguese scholars, Faria y Sousa wrote in Spanish for an increasingly cosmopolitan audience curious about the exotic customs of India and the far east. Asia Portuguesa was an important text in disseminating information on the religious and ritual practices of India, China, Japan, Ethiopia and Ceylon. His inclusion of Hindu rites in Malabar did much to inform (sometimes misinform) European perceptions of Hinduism. Some years earlier, Faria y Sousa had translated the work of the Jesuit missionary Alvarez de Semedo who worked in China, which became an important source for the present work: ‘the chapters on China… also form an ethnohistory of the Ming’ (Lach and Van Kley, III p.1568).

The scope of Asia Portuguesa is impressive, combining mercantile and military geographical detail and rich descriptions of native life. After the revolt of Portugal from Spanish dominion in 1640 the author suffered for his long-term association with the Royal Family. On his decease in 1649, Faria y Sousa’s significant archive of books and manuscripts returned to the custody of his son who prepared the present work for publication. It was republished several times in Spanish and an English translation by John Stevens was published in London in 1694-95.

Alden, ‘European Americana’, 666/47; Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, 2309; Innocencio, V, 416; Lowendahl, ‘China Illustrata Nova’, 1570; Palau, 86692; Sabin, 28001; p.355; Streit, ‘Bibliotheca Missionum’, V, 476.

11.

VALENTIJN, Francois.

Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën, vervattende een Naaukeurige en Uitvoerige Verhandelinge van Nederlands Mogentheyd in die Gewesten…

Five volumes, folio, with an engraved allegorical frontispiece, engraved vignette on general title, engraved dedication leaf, folding engraved portrait of the author, and a magnificent series of some 367 various other images (comprising 24 engraved maps, most of them folding, 265 engraved plans, views, portraits and plates of plants, animals, costumes, etc., of which many are double-page and/or folding and 78 engravings in the text), eight folding printed tables; an excellent copy in contemporary Dutch mottled calf, spines ornately gilt in compartments between raised bands, double leather labels. Dordrecht and Amsterdam, Joannes van Braam and Gerard onder de Linden, 1724-1726.

The great encyclopedia of the Dutch East Indies

This scarce and important collection is only rarely found complete and in such good contemporary condition. A superb visual record of early voyages in the form of its extensive and splendid series of engraved illustrations, it was compiled to provide an extensive and detailed geographical and historical description of the entire region in which the Dutch VOC or East India Company had a colonial interest or had established trading posts. Its compass thus includes, as well as the East Indies, parts of China and Japan and parts of the Near and Middle East. There is much on Australia, the Philippines, Ceylon and the Cape of Good Hope.

With its 3500 pages of text it is altogether a remarkable resource for the history of seventeenth-century voyages in the region, and details of Dutch colonial, trading and exploratory activities. The extraordinary series of maps and illustrations offers an exceptionally important portrayal of the Far East and the East Indies.

The publication of Valentijn’s book reflects an intense interest in the “Southland” in the early eighteenth century. To satisfy this audience, Valentijn was able to publish extensive narratives of the expeditions of Abel Tasman (1642-1643) and Willem de Vlamingh (1696-97), and to produce a number of images from these expeditions – which are among the very few visual records of Australia and the South Pacific prior to the Cook voyages.

Valentijn includes with the Tasman narrative a series of small charts adapted from the navigator’s journals, along with a number of coastal profiles, which are the earliest views or plans of the Tasmanian and north Australian coasts, while the illustrations to the Vlamingh section include the famous view of the Swan River in Western Australia and the earliest depiction of the black swan. A general map of Tasman’s voyages begins the section, with a fine depiction of the outline of the Australian continent established by him. There are also several New Zealand charts and views.

Willem de Vlamingh’s voyage to the west coast of Australia was the initiative of Nicholas Witsen, Burgomaster of Amsterdam and director of the VOC. The objective was not only scientific but directly linked to Dutch commercial activities. William Eisler and Bernard

Smith point out (in Terra Australis: the Furthest Shore, AGNSW, 1988) that Witsen was an enthusiastic collector of paintings and artefacts, and insisted that a painter accompany the expedition to record the rarities found: “the only surviving drawings are the watercolour sketches of the Western Australian coast done by Victor Victorszoon… Witsen received from New Holland… some brambles of wood and a small chest containing shells collected on the beaches, fruits, plants etc.… No specimens of land animals were brought back to Holland. Several black swans were captured but died on the return voyage…”.

Valentijn also remarked on the “rare and beautiful shells from the beaches of the Southland to be found in the cabinets of Simon Schynvoet of Amsterdam…”.

Particular importance attaches to the fact that some considerable part of the mapping – including much of the Australian material – is based on original manuscript sources that have since been lost: François Valentijn (1666-1727) spent several years in the East Indies, and made much use of official archives and documents (many of which were destroyed at Batavia during the Second World War) in compiling his collection. In this context, the “Java” map alone is of special importance.

Bastin-Brommer, n11-12 (incorrect plate count); Landwehr, ‘VOC’, 467; Mendelssohn, IV, 594; Nissen ZBI, 4213; Tiele, II, 1121.

CHURCHILL, Awnsham [and] John Thomas OSBORNE. 12.

A Collection of Voyages and Travels.

Eight volumes, folio, two works in matching binding, some 213 engraved plates including work by Herman Moll, Johannes Kip, and others (many double-page or folding), engraved and woodcut illustrations throughout; a handsome set in late eighteenth-century Russia, marbled edges. London, John Walthoe, 1732.

Churchill’s great voyage collection, beautifully illustrated throughout

A splendid set of the two great voyage anthologies of the early eighteenth century, in contemporary matched bindings. The plates are of special appeal, often showing very striking scenes of exotic life, particularly in tropical climes. This is the finest set of this great voyage collection that we have seen, with Churchill in its second improved edition and the first edition of the supplementary Osborne series, better known as the “Harleian” or “Oxford Voyages”.

Copies of the various editions of the Churchill Collection, in particular, do appear on the market from time to time, but almost always in dilapidated condition – the result of their substantial size and the use that they were subjected to as the major source for voyage information in the early eighteenth century. This copy is in superb condition, the bindings bright and the text and plates remarkably fresh. The substantial volumes contain many accounts of voyages to a great many places, a number of accounts appearing for the first time, or at least for the first time in English. Originally published in 1704 in four volumes, it appears here in its second, much augmented six-volume edition.

The success of the work is a reflection of an audience keenly interested in what was a time of energetic exploration and trade expansion throughout the world. For example, the first volume here contains descriptions of the lands and peoples of China, Formosa, Japan, the Congo, and South Africa, lands just beginning to be known to Europeans, as well as accounts of still unfamiliar places such as Egypt and the Ukraine. There are reports of the Solomon Islands, Dutch shipwrecks in the East Indies, Ovalle’s work on Chile (with a fine depiction of the Southern Cross), Virginia, attempts to discover a Northwest Passage, the sages of India, and the land of Tonqueen (Vietnam), among very many other reports. Much of the third volume is Baldaeus’ work on the East Indies translated from the Dutch, while Nieuhoff ’s work on the East Indies appears in the second volume.

This set is supplemented by Osborne’s scarce two-volume work, published from the unpublished manuscripts in the collection of the earl of Oxford. Although separately published much later, the two volumes are often described as a supplement to Churchill.

The maps are after Dutch cartographer Herman Moll and the frontispiece map in the second volume is “A Chart of the East Indies…” with the north and north-west coasts of Australia delineated in accordance with Dutch discoveries.

Borba de Moraes, p. 181; Hill, 295 (later edition); NMM, 33.

13.

DU HALDE, P. Jean-Baptiste.

Description Géographique Historique, Chronologique, Politique et Physique de l’Empire de Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise, enrichie des cartes générales et particulieres des ces pays, de la carte générale & des cartes particulieres du Thibet, & de la Corée…

Four volumes, large folio, titles printed in red & black with engraved title vignettes, 65 engraved plates, comprising 43 topographical maps (15 folding and 14 double-page) and 22 images (nine double-page), engraved and woodcut initials, woodcut head-pieces; some scattered very light stains; a very handsome set in contemporary French calf. Paris, Le Mercier, 1735.

The first definitive work on the Chinese Empire

First edition of this great and influential history of the Chinese empire, the first definitive work on the subject, famous for its suite of beautiful maps by Jean Baptiste d’Anville. Much reprinted, this original French edition is the preferred issue, and considered ‘the most desirable and significant’ (Lada-Mocarski).

This was the first attempt to describe the Chinese empire with any degree of geographical or historical accuracy and became ‘the standard authority on matters Chinese for much of the eighteenth century’ (Marshall & Williams p. 84). Du Halde, secretary to Le Tellier, the confessor of Louis XIV, garnered the bulk of his material from the reports of Jesuit missionaries, mostly unpublished elsewhere, with details added from published Jesuit relations and other printed sources. Both the text and the maps are based on information derived from the extensive Jesuit surveys of China made between 1708 and 1716. The cartography of Du Halde’s work provided the ‘Europeans with a more accurate representation of China than they then had for most of their own continent’ (Howell, Anniversary, 37). For certain remote parts of northern China, Mongolia, and Tibet, it was the only adequate reference until the advent of the technological revolution in surveying in the twentieth century.

A much reduced English edition, in four small volumes, was published the following year, while a fuller English edition came out five years later (see following item). German translations appeared between 1747 and 1749. The maps were also reprinted by D’Anville in 1737 as the Nouvel Atlas de la Chine.

In some copies, pages 451 and 452 of this volume were omitted and the map substituted in their place. In this copy, both are present.

Alden, ‘European Americana’, 735/87; Cordier, Sinica, 45 (listing the contents in detail); de Backer/Sommervogel , IV 35; Howes, D546; James Ford Bell, D310; Lada-Mocarski, 2; Laures, 606; Lowendahl, ‘China Illustrata Nova’, 395 (with extensive analysis of contents); Lust, ‘Western Books on China’, 12; Streit, VII 3205.

14.

DU HALDE, P. Jean-Baptiste.

A Description of the Empire of China and Chinese-Tartary, Together with the Kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet…

Two volumes, large folio, with 51 maps and plans (most folding) and 13 plates; some scattered foxing but a very good copy in original blind stamped calf, spines expertly restored in contemporary style, panelled in gilt between raised bands. London, printed by T. Gardner for Edward Cave, 1738-1741.

The second, revised and best English edition of Du Halde on China

First English folio edition of du Halde’s magnum opus on China, carefully translated with a new suite of finely engraved maps reproducing (and claiming to improve upon) those of the French original.

This folio edition was printed to appease a keen English audience unsatisfied with the small four volume octavo translation hurried to the press following the magnificent French folio edition of 1735 (previous item). In his lengthy preface, the publisher Cave claims to have improved upon du Halde’s work in a number of respects, boasting better organisation and structure, clear and literal translation from the French, improved maps and a new standardised orthography of Chinese for European use. Löwendahl attributes the translation to William Guthrie and an Irish assistant who worked under Cave’s scrutiny ‘to give a faithful version of the Author’s Sense in the fewest words, and to avoid a disagreeable style.’

This edition did improve the standardisation of place names and proper nouns that marked du Halde’s original (a result of its compilation from diverse missionary authors).

By doing so it ‘established the orthographic conventions by which Chinese has been represented in English until very recently’ (DNB). Furthermore, Cave lavished great expense on having the maps reproduced in their entirety, checking and cross referencing place names and adding engraved notes from the relevant texts to illuminate the understanding of his readers. This task was accomplished by the prolific London engraver Emanuel Bowen who later in his career printed several North American surveys by James Cook.

This is an extremely good copy of this handsome book, with the contemporary ownership inscription of Archibald Kennedy, a customs agent.

British Map Engravers , p.96; de Backer/Sommervogel , IV 37; Lada-Mocarski, 2; Lowendahl, ‘China Illustrata Nova’, 409; Lust, ‘Western Books on China’, 15; Streit, ‘Bibliotheca Missionum’, VII, 3239.

15.

BELLIN, Jacques Nicolas.

Observations sur la Construction de la Carte des Mers comprises entre l’Asie & l’Amérique, appellées par les Navigateurs Mer de Sud & Mer Pacifique…

Quarto, 20 pp., occasional mild foxing, very good in recent plain pale wrappers. Paris, Veuve Delatour, 1741.

Bellin discusses his Pacific map and casts doubt on Quirós

First edition: rare pamphlet by French Royal cartographer Jacques Nicolas Bellin discussing his famous and influential mapping of the Pacific.

Bellin’s Pacific map of 1742 is particularly interesting with regards to newer discoveries on the western coasts of the Americas and New Holland; regarding the latter he names Dampier, Tasman and the English Pilot of 1734 as three important sources. The map is especially noteworthy for its hypothetical depiction of the eastern coastline of Australia: Bellin conflates the depiction of Quirós’ New Hebrides with the eastern coastline of the Australian continent ‘with such conviction that it confused several Pacific explorers, including Bougainville’ (Mapping of Terra Australis, p.77).

However in this text – published a year before the official publication date of the map it discusses – he shows a different attitude to the ongoing riddle of a southern continent hypothesized by Quirós, with a substantial three pages discussing Quirós’ 1606 discoveries. Bellin here maintains that ‘La Terre Australe du S. Esprit a fait jusqu’içi l’embarras de tous les Géographes’, and twice speculates that Quirós’ extravagant claims for his discoveries may be imaginary.

One of the pre-eminent geographers of pre-Revolutionary France, Bellin was noted for both the quality of his work and his prodigious output (including the impressive atlases Le Neptune Français of 1735 and the Hydrographie Français of 1756-1765). This is a rare printing of a text republished some years later with other geographical notes in Bellin’s Recueil des Memoires qui ont été publiés avec les Cartes Hydrographiques (Paris, c. 1767).

Clancy, ‘Mapping of Terra Australis’, pp.76-77; Dewez, ‘The Printed World’, part four, p.75; European Americana, 741/16; Tooley ‘Dictionary of Mapmakers’, p.49.

16.

[ANSON] WALTER, Richard, compiler.

A Voyage Round the World, in the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV.

By George Anson, Esq… an Expedition to the South-Seas…

Thick quarto, with strong impressions of all 42 folding engraved plates and maps, complete with the 12-pp. List of Subscribers and the single leaf directions to the bookbinder; contemporary English red morocco, ornately gilt, spine gilt in compartments between raised bands, gilt edges. London, Printed for the Author by John and Paul Knapton, 1748.

Anson presentation copy: from the libraries of two Prime Ministers

Superb presentation copy of the greatest pre-Cook English voyage book, on large and thick or “Royal” paper and in contemporary morocco binding, inscribed by its owner George Grenville, then Secretary of State for the Navy, “Given to me by Lord Anson 1748. George Grenville”. Grenville’s name appears on the List of Subscribers with an asterisk, indicating that he had in fact subscribed for one of the 350 ‘Royal Paper’ copies (the greatly preferred examples of this great book): presumably his subscription was superseded by this gift of just such a copy, made yet more desirable by its splendid binding.

George Grenville of course later became Prime Minister. Subsequently this copy was owned by another English Prime Minister, the Earl of Rosebery, whose bookplate appears below Grenville’s.

Richard Walter’s compilation account of the Anson voyage, prepared under the careful eye of its commander, was one of the most popular naval narratives of the eighteenth century. ‘Anson’s voyage of 1740-44 holds a unique and terrible place in British maritime history. [When] Anson reached the coast of China in November 1742 he was left with one ship and a handful of men, some of whom had “turned mad and idiots”. The most extraordinary part of the voyage was still to come, for despite his losses Anson was determined to seize the treasure galleon that made the annual voyage from Acapulco to Manila. Laden with Peruvian silver, she was the “Prize of all the Oceans”. In June 1743 Anson intercepted the Nuestra Señora de Covadonga, and in a 90-minute action forced her surrender. After refitting at Canton he returned home the next year to find himself compared with Drake, and his exploits with the long-remembered feats of arms against the Spain of Philip II. The casualties were forgotten as the public celebrated a rare triumph in a drab and interminable war…, and in 1748 the long-awaited authorised account appeared under the name of Richard Walter, chaplain on the Centurion, and became a best-seller. Walter’s volume has formed the basis of all accounts of Anson’s voyage from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. The book, more fully illustrated than any similar work up to that time, was both a stirring story of adventure at sea and an exhortation to further Pacific enterprise’ (Glyn Williams, The prize of all the oceans. The triumph and tragedy of Anson’s voyage round the world, 1999).

Borba de Moraes, I, 32; Cox, I, p. 49; Hill, 1817; Kroepelien, 1086; Sabin, 1626.

17.

[HARRISON, John and James SHORT]

A Narrative of the Proceedings relative to the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea; by Mr. John Harrison’s Time-Keeper; Subsequent to those published in the Year 1763.

Octavo, with the rare half-title, 18 pp.; a remarkably tall untrimmed copy, numbered in ink “no. 23” to half-title, disbound but fine. London, Printed for the Author, and Sold by Mr. Sandby, 1765.

“Our faithful guide through all the vicissitudes of climates”

John Harrison’s self-published pamphlet defending the success of his chronometer H-4, and staking his claim to be awarded the full “Longitude Prize” of £20,000. An exact copy of H-4 built by Harrison’s colleague Larcum Kendall would be carried on Cook’s second voyage, Cook himself calling it “our faithful guide through all the vicissitudes of climates” (Journals, ed. Beaglehole, II, p. 692). All of the eighteenth-century books and pamphlets relating to the riddle of longitude, of which this is one of the most significant, were published in very small editions and are now understandably rare.

Harrison had been worrying away at the riddle of longitude for over three decades by the time he published this book. H-4 had first been properly tested in 1761, when Harrison’s son William took it with on a voyage to Jamaica in the ship Deptford for a sea-trial.

Although the trial was a triumph which exceeded the demands of the Longitude Act, Harrison’s claim to the Prize was not recognised, meaning that he was forced to another West Indies trial of H-4 in 1764. Again accompanied by William, on this occasion H-4 computed the longitude of Barbados within 9.8 geographical miles, exhibiting accuracy three times greater than that required by the Act. Despite this success, the board still refused to issue the award, in some part due to resistance from the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne, an advocate of the cheaper lunar distance method.

Faced with another refusal, Harrison had this appeal to the Board of Longitude printed.

It includes his relevant correspondence with the Admiralty, concluding that ‘whereas a method (invented by your Memorialist) for the Discovery of the Longitude hath been tried by Experiments made according to the Appointment of your Honourable Board…

Your Memorialist therefore humbly prays; that your Honourable Board will be pleased to grant him such Certificate as directed by the above recited Act’.

The board, however, continued to be unmoved, even sponsoring subtle changes to the Longitude Act the same year as this work was published. Under duress, Harrison would even be forced to reveal the technical specifications of his invention.

The work was printed with the technical assistance of the maker of optical instruments James Short, who is usually listed as the author/editor. Although noted in several libraries, this work is very rarely offered for sale. The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich did not have a copy until 2003 when it acquired the papers of the Second Viscount Barrington, himself a member of the Board of Longitude in the eighteenth century.

Adams & Waters, 2017; Baillie, p. 274; Crone, 557; Polak, 4304, 7534; Sommervogel, VI, 650.

18.

CHAPMAN, Fredric Henrik af.

Architectura navalis mercatoria.

Large folio, double-page letterpress table, engraved double-page title and dedication, 62 doublepage folding plates, all plates with generous margins and with good, clear impressions, some toning and light foxing, old repairs to plates 28 & 29; a strikingly handsome copy in contemporary French mottled calf, the French royal arms stamped in gilt on each cover, alternating anchor and fleur-de-lys devices in gilt on the spine between raised bands. Stockholm, 1768.

The greatest ship-building book

The most important work of naval architecture of the eighteenth century, with detailed and attractive plans for many different kinds of naval vessels. Published in the very year of the sailing of Cook’s Endeavour, and just two decades before the First Fleet, it provides an extraordinary summary of contemporary ship-building techniques.

Fredric Henric af Chapman (1721-1808) was perhaps the greatest naval architect of the eighteenth century. Under the direction of King Gustav III it was Chapman who drove the modernisation of the Swedish fleet, and his methods surpassed and perfected contemporary shipbuilding, and were rapidly adopted by all of the main naval nations.

Not all of Chapman’s plans were built, chiefly because of the imposing scale on which he worked: there are, for example, plans for a privateering frigate, designed as a deep-water commerce raider, 160 feet long, and displacing 750 tons. She was to be armed with forty guns and no fewer than four hundred men: around five times the size of the average privateer of his day, and twice the size of actual French privateers built during the French Revolutionary War (Konstam & McBride, Privateers & Pirates, 1730-1830, pp. 31-2).

This has always been a scarce and desirable work: even in 1781, when Vial du Clairbois issued an annotated quarto edition of Chapman’s work, he commented ‘Il ne se trouve pas en France & coûte 180 livres en Hollande, en feuilles. Il est de nature à occuper dignement une place dans le cabinet des curieux sur cette matière, mais il n’est pas d’un prix à la portée de tout le monde’. As a result, despite being one of the foundations of modern naval architecture, this work is better known from later editions and facsimiles than, as here, in its full glory.

Indeed, the scale of the work is significant, as it is now known chiefly from much smaller quarto-sized plates, not the grand folio double-page plates seen here.

Handsomely bound in a contemporary French binding with the royal arms stamped in gilt to both boards, this copy is complete with the letterpress “Table générale des plans”, a tri-lingual index (printed in French, English, and Swedish) that is missing in many copies. One of the reasons for the work’s scarcity is plausibly said to be its actual practical use in shipyards of the period. We have seen another copy of the work almost devastated by hands-on use. The survival of this copy in such excellent condition suggests that it has always been in a library rather than a shipyard, and given its royal binding probably rather a good library.

Brunet, I, 1797; Polak, 1605.

[LONGITUDE] FLEURIEU, Charles Pierre Claret, comte de.

19.

Voyage fait par ordre du roi en 1768 et 1769, à différentes parties du monde, pour éprouver en mer les horloges marines…

Two volumes, quarto, with four maps, two plates, and five folding tables; fine in contemporary French marbled calf, spines panelled in gilt between raised bands, double labels, marbled endpapers and edges; with the bookticket “Decrès” in each volume Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1773.

The French race to beat Harrison: Berthoud’s chronometer trialled

First edition, surprisingly rare: the early work of Louis XVI’s Minister of Marine.

This fine copy of an important voyage account belonged to another highly important naval figure, Admiral Denis Decrès, Napoleon’s Minister for the Navy and the Colonies from 1801 to 1814 and thus the Minister directly responsible for Baudin’s voyage, which departed shortly before he took office. Decrès was commemorated by Baudin in the naming of Ile Decrès (now Kangaroo Island).

Fleurieu too was honoured in their naming of the Fleurieu Peninsula south of Adelaide and Fleurieu Island in northwest Tasmania.

Count Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu (1738-1810) was one of the most important figures in the history of French exploration, in many ways the equivalent of Alexander Dalrymple, heavily involved with the cartography and science of voyages during his era.

Louis XVI’s Minister of the Navy from 1790, he was several times imprisoned during the Terror, surviving to re-join the administration after the fall of Robespierre. Subsequently he was several times again appointed Minister of the Navy, and was personally commissioned by Napoleon to establish the causes of the French defeat at Trafalgar.

The voyage described here in his first of many books was the single voyage undertaken by him personally. It recounts the story of the voyage of the Isis in 1768 to the Caribbean and New York, chiefly from the point of view of its scientific aims, which were significant: this was the major French participation in the race to establish Longitude at sea.

Fleurieu’s specific purpose was to test the marine clock built by the pioneering Swiss, later French, instrument maker Ferdinand Berthoud, the first such French attempt to solve the scientific puzzle pre-occupying Europe at the time. Scientific progress made by him and during his administration enabled the commissioning of the first of the French grands voyages of the late eighteenth century, those of La Pérouse and d’Entrecasteaux.

The competition between Berthoud and Le Roy to develop a viable marine chronometer in France – at the same time as Harrison was working in England – is described

by Catherine Cardinal in “Ferdinand Berthoud and Pierre Le Roy: Judgement in the Twentieth Century of a Quarrel Dating from the Eighteenth Century” (in The Quest for Longitude, ed. W.J.H. Andrews, 1996).

Not in the catalogue of the Hill collection; Sabin, 24750.

20.

COOK, Captain James.

A set of the three voyage accounts.

Together eight volumes, quarto, and a folio atlas; in the original marbled boards as issued by the publisher, edges entirely uncut, leather spines and corners recently renewed by Aquarius; the atlas volume uncut in original grey boards with original printed paper label (“Plates to Cook and King’s Voyage”); overall a very good set, preserved in four fitted bookform boxes. London, 1773, 1777, 1784.

An entirely uncut set of Cook’s voyages, in first editions

A handsome uniform set of Cook’s voyages, in first editions throughout, entirely uncut.

The set is made up as follows: FIRST VOYAGE. HAWKESWORTH, John. An Account of the Voyages… for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere… Three volumes, quarto, 52 engraved plates and maps, many folding. London, Printed for W. Strahan, and T. Cadell, 1773.

SECOND VOYAGE. COOK, James. A Voyage towards the South Pole, and Round the World… Two volumes, quarto, 63 engraved plates and maps, many folding. London, Printed for W. Strahan, and T. Cadell, 1777.

THIRD VOYAGE. COOK, James and James KING. A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean…

Three volumes, quarto, with 24 engraved maps and coastal profiles; with separate folio Atlas, containing two charts and 62 engraved plates. London, Printed by W. and A. Strahan, for G. Nicol, bookseller… and T. Cadell, 1784.

The series of official Cook narratives is the cornerstone of any collection of books relating to voyages or the Pacific. By the end of his third voyage and untimely death the face of the Pacific had been changed forever. The lasting memorial to his achievements, the official publication of his journals, was this lavishly produced and extensive series of volumes, with its wonderful series of about 200 marvellous engravings based on the work of the official artists on the voyages, including Parkinson, Hodges, and Webber. The series stands as the great monument to Cook’s achievements.

The binding of this set is in as close as possible to the original publisher’s (or bookseller’s) binding in which the books first appeared, uncut in marbled boards simply backed and cornered in calf leather; just these leather details have been expertly restored by Aquarius in London to remedy an earlier repair.

Copies of Cook’s voyages in their original publisher’s bindings are of great rarity, and especially so in very good condition. This very set was bought by John Howell Books of San Francisco from Bernard Quaritch in London in the 1970s, and when sold by Howell it was described as the finest copy that the firm had handled since their foundation in 1912.

It has since belonged to two distinguished private American collections.

Beddie, 648, 1216, 1543; Hill, 782, 358, 361; Holmes, 5, 24, 47.

21.

[COOK] HAWKESWORTH, John.

An Account of the Voyages undertaken by the Order of His present Majesty for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere…

Three volumes, quarto, with 51 engraved charts and plates (most folding), the charts with contemporary handcolouring in either pink or green (some offsetting and oxidising of colour), the plates in crisp impressions with early manuscript captions, printed errata slip present and the corrections made in an early hand; early issue bound with the Directions for the Cuts but without the Chart of the Straits of Magellan; a charming set in tan polished calf, double red labels, a few bumps, rebacked with the original spines expertly laid down, armorial bookplates of Syston Park to each volume. London, W. Strahan, 1773.

From the library at Syston Park: a special copy of the Endeavour’s voyage

First edition of the official account of Cook’s first voyage: a remarkable set, from Sir John Thorold’s library at Syston Park, noted as a “First impression” in pencil on the front endpaper, and carefully improved by the addition of simple but most attractive contemporary hand-colouring to the maps. This is in itself an unusual feature but in addition the original owner has added detailed manuscript captions to the engravings in a bold ink hand; several of the plates also have manuscript adjustments to the plate numbers. These engraved plates are all in notably strong and clear early impressions.

This compendium of four major voyage accounts to the Pacific culminates with that of Cook, which fills two of the three large volumes, giving an enthralling account of his exploration of Tahiti, New Zealand and the east coast of Australia. The work was edited by the professional writer John Hawkesworth, who was given the original journals of Captains Byron, Wallis, Carteret and Cook, as well as the private journal of Joseph Banks, in order to prepare it for publication, a task which took almost two years. Cook himself was in the middle of his second voyage when it was finally published in London on 9 June 1773 (Cook was actually in Cook Strait, New Zealand, at the time).

Hawkesworth’s involvement in the book was controversial, and much ink has been spilt on the subject of his fitness for the task (the dilettante man of letters Horace Walpole is known to have wittily criticised Cook’s enthusiasm for the fishermen of 40 islands, Samuel Johnson an apparent fixation with exotic insects, while indignant letters to contemporary editors attacked everything from Hawkesworth’s apparent lasciviousness to his godlessness), but these tempests cannot distract from the fascinating story. The plates, charts and views are magnificent, and most famously include the first astonishing engraving of a kangaroo, charts of New Zealand and the east coast of Australia, and the moving depiction of the Endeavour, hauled on shore just north of Cape Tribulation on the north Queensland coast to fix the hole that nearly sent them to the bottom.

Hawkesworth’s assembly contains the cream of eighteenth-century English exploration, and was a necessary adornment to any serious Georgian library. From the library at Syston Park, home of the great collector Sir John H. Thorold (1773-1831), probably purchased by his father and equally famous bibliophile Sir John (1734-1815).

Beddie, 650; Borba de Moraes, p. 395; Hill, pp. 139-140; Holmes, 5 (note); Kroepelien, 535 (note).

22.

[COOK] PARKINSON, Sydney.

A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, in His Majesty’s Ship, the Endeavour…

Large quarto, with frontispiece portrait, a map and 26 plates; the usual offsetting from the plates, occasional browning as usual and a few spots; completely uncut and partly unopened; an exceptionally large copy in its original binding of blue-grey paper boards, plain paper spine carefully renewed; some rubbing to boards especially at edges; in a folding cloth case. London, Printed for Stanfield Parkinson, the Editor, 1773.

Uncut in original boards, and larger than ever

A really exceptional copy of the first edition of the most handsome of the unofficial accounts of Cook’s first voyage. Copies of the first edition of Parkinson are invariably quite large with generous margins (and are often misleadingly catalogued as “Large paper” – in fact there were no “small paper” copies, only copies cut down by the binder), but the book is virtually never seen as here, completely uncut in its simple original binding. The spine has been replaced with appropriate plain paper. For the record, this copy measures 380 x 295 mm (binding) and 362 x 292 mm (bookblock).

Parkinson, the son of a Quaker brewer of Edinburgh, was apprenticed to a draper when his ability for drawing ‘flowers, fruits and other objects of natural history’ first attracted the attention of Sir Joseph Banks. Banks engaged him as botanical artist on Cook’s first voyage, and he went on to produce an important series of magnificent botanical and natural history drawings, and was the first professional artist to set foot on Australian soil. He died at the end of the voyage, en route from Batavia to the Cape of Good Hope.

Parkinson’s is the most handsome of the unofficial accounts of Cook’s first voyage; it contains extensive accounts of New Zealand and Australia, and has some of the earliest natural history observations on the region, including the first published use of the word kangaroo (as “kangooroo”, p. 149). Parkinson himself was responsible for the original drawings for twenty-three of the twenty-seven plates here. His original artwork and these splendid engravings made from it represent one of the chief visual sources for Cook’s first voyage, and one of the first views European observers had of such South Pacific scenes.

Parkinson’s journal of the voyage is plain and unaffected, and in the words of its editor ‘its only ornament is truth, and its best recommendation characteristic of himself, its genuine simplicity’. Curiously, as the botanical drawings were retained by Banks, none of his botanical drawings appear in his own account, and not until recent years has the world at large learned of Parkinson’s genius as a botanical artist.

Beaglehole, I, pp. ccliii-cclv; Beddie, 712; Davidson, ‘A Book Collector’s Notes’, pp. 54-56; Hill, 1308; Hocken, p.12; Holmes, 7; Kroepelien, 944; New Zealand National Bibliography, 4466; O’Reilly-Reitman, 371.

23.

[COOK] FORSTER, Georg and Johann R.

A Voyage round the World… [and] Observations made during a Voyage Round the World…

Two works in three volumes, quarto; with a folding map in the first work and a folding map and folding table in the second; both works fine, clean, and large examples, in matching (near uniform) bindings of contemporary marbled calf, spines gilt in compartments, red edges, library numbers (consecutive) in gilt on spines and library stamp in gilt on front covers (‘Freundschaftliche Litterarische Gesellschaft’) and a small printed label on preliminaries of each volume (‘gebunden durch H. W. Cornelius’); modern owner’s booktickets; a little chafing to covers but a really handsome set. London, G. Robinson [and] B. White, 1777 & 1778.

A matching set of the two major Forster works on Cook’s second voyage.

A fine contemporarily-assembled set of the first editions of both works produced by the Forsters, father and son, as a result of Cook’s second voyage. Georg Forster’s Voyage round the World is one of the most considered of all the secondary accounts of Cook’s voyages while his father Johann’s Observations is a pioneering work on the anthropology of the Pacific. Their combined work forms a distinct and vital contribution to the history and accomplishments of the arduous voyage.

The Forsters travelled on board the Resolution following the withdrawal of Joseph Banks and his party from the voyage. Johann was one of the pre-eminent scientists and natural historians of his generation, while Georg, not even eighteen years old when he joined the ship, proved to have a facile pen and an alert and inquiring mind. Johann was supposed to write the official record, but he and Georg returned to controversy, culminating in them being asked to withdraw from any involvement with the official account. Thus denied, they ‘set to work to forestall it with an account of their own, and succeeded in doing so by about six weeks’ (Holmes). This thoughtful narrative account in two volumes, the first work in this attractive set, was the work of the younger Forster, Georg, though it is clear that Johann contributed to its writing.

The third volume is Johann Forster’s Observations, a most influential work which revolutionised voyage anthropology and ethnography. The copy in this set is one of those to contain the exceptionally important “Chart Representing the Isles of the South Seas”, not present in all copies, which is based on the original sketch of the islands around Tahiti drawn for Cook by Tupaia, the Tahitian priest and navigator, on board the Endeavour.

Tupaia discussed these islands at great length with Cook, who took extensive notes. The map is, in Forster’s own words, ‘a monument of the ingenuity and geographical knowledge of the people in the Society Isles, and of Tupaya in particular.’

The slim list of subscribers, mostly Oxford academics, accounts for only 91 copies.

Beaglehole, II, pp. clii-cliii; Beddie, 1247, 1261; Davidson, ‘A Book Collector’s Notes’, pp. 61-2; Hill, 625, 628; Hocken, p. 16-18; Holmes, 23, 29; Kroepelien, 450, 456; New Zealand National Bibliography, 2012, 2016; O’Reilly-Reitman, 382, 395, etc; Rosove, 132.A1.d, 140.A1; see Michael Hoare, The Tactless Philosopher, Melbourne, 1976, pp. 182-183 for a discussion of the publication of this work; Spence, 464, 467.

24.

[COOK] ZIMMERMANN, Heinrich.

Dernier Voyage du Capitaine Cook autour du monde, où se trouvent les circonstances de sa mort, publié en Allemand…

Octavo; a fine and very clean copy in an excellent modern French binding in the 18th-century style of grained dark blue calf, ornately gilt. Berne, Nouvelle Société Typographique, 1782.

With an eye-witness account of Cook’s death

The first and best French edition of this important personal account of Cook’s third voyage, and extremely scarce: a most attractive copy. Beddie records only the Mitchell and National Library copies in Australia. This edition contains, in addition to Zimmermann’s narrative account, a life of Captain Cook adapted from material that had appeared in the Göttingisches Magazin, the work of either (or both) Georg Forster or Georg Lichtenberg.

First appearing in German in 1781, Zimmermann’s was the first description of the third voyage to appear on the continent, and as one of two accounts first published a full three years before the official account it may well have been in fact the earliest full description of the voyage. In any early edition, Zimmermann’s first-hand account of Cook’s third voyage is one of the scarcest of all the Cook voyage accounts (there is for example no copy of any of the eighteenth-century editions in the Hill catalogue).

Second French and German editions followed in 1783. “Both French editions are of great rarity and are of interest not only on that account but because of the additional matter which they contain…” (Holmes). There was no contemporary English edition, and a full translation into English had to wait until 1926.

“Zimmermann, a native of Speyer, was coxswain in the Discovery. From the start of the voyage he determined to keep a shorthand journal of the voyage and to retain it, despite the instructions… demanding the surrender of all logs and journals… His account is by no means free from errors, but it has an ingenuousness and charm which differentiate it from the other accounts. His appreciation of Cook’s character deserves to rank with that of Samwell” (Holmes). Pp. 7 to 11 of this edition contain Zimmermann’s long description of the Tasmanian Aborigines, with an interesting note in passing suggesting how many copies of the “Resolution and Adventure” medal, minted for distribution on the second voyage, were actually still available for distribution during the third voyage: on one day alone, Cook gave examples to eight or nine Aborigines, “which had such a good effect that the next day 49 more came to visit… some of whom received the same presents as their earlier compatriots, but none of whom was willing to come aboard the ships…”.

Beddie, 1629; Davidson, ‘A Book Collector’s Notes’, p. 66; Forbes, ‘Hawaiian National Bibliography’, 47; Holmes, 44; Kroepelien, 1363; O’Reilly-Reitman, 423.

25.

[COOK] ELLIS, William.

An Authentic Narrative of a Voyage performed by Captain Cook and Captain Clerke, in His Majesty’s Ships Resolution and Discovery… including a faithful Account of all their Discoveries, and the unfortunate Death of Captain Cook…

Two volumes, octavo, with a folding chart and 21 engraved plates; a very good copy in contemporary half calf and marbled boards, spines rubbed, joints split but the sides firmly held; folding cloth box. London, G. Robinson, 1782.

The surgeon’s mate describes Cook’s third voyage

First edition of the second English-language account of Cook’s third voyage: ‘an important supplement to the official account, which it preceded by two years’ (Forbes).

Ellis, surgeon’s mate and talented amateur artist, sailed first on the Discovery and later on the Resolution. On his return he was in financial straits and, despite the prohibition by the Admiralty of the publication of any unauthorised account of the voyage, sold his narrative to a London publisher for fifty guineas. It was published over his name, and was thus the first account of the expedition to acknowledge its authorship, earning the condemnation of Sir Joseph Banks, who wrote to him in January 1782 that ‘I fear it will not in future be in my power to do what it might have been, had you asked and followed my advice’.

Ellis’ narrative contains much valuable information on Alaska, the Northwest Coast, and Hawaii, and the attractive engraved plates, after the author’s drawings, include eight of Hawaii, two of Alaska, and three of the Northwest Coast. The plates show Ellis to have been a talented amateur artist, and represent a significant contribution to the graphic record of the voyage.They ‘are among the earliest published on the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska, and the Northwest’ (Hill). Choris’ famous views did not appear until almost forty years later. Ellis’ views of Hawaii provide the first general depictions of the islands, as Rickman’s book, published in the previous year, showed only the death of Cook while Zimmermann’s account was not illustrated.

There is a chapter devoted to their visit to Van Diemen’s Land in January 1777, in the course of which Ellis painted a famous watercolour view of Adventure Bay, now in the National Library of Australia.

Ellis died in 1785 after a fall from the main mast of a ship lying at Ostend.

Beaglehole, III, p. ccvii; Beddie, 1599; Davidson, ‘A Book Collector’s Notes’, p. 66; Forbes, ‘Hawaiian National Bibliography’, 41; Hawaii One Hundred, 3; Hill, 555; Hocken, pp. 20-21; Holmes, 42; Judd, 59; Kroepelien, 399; Lada-Mocarski, 35.

26.

COOK, James & James KING.

A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean; for making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere: performed under the direction of Captains Cook, Clerke, and Gore, in the years 1776… 1780.

Four volumes, octavo, with a portrait frontispiece of Cook and a large folding map in the first volume, and a total of 47 other plates and charts throughout; contemporary manuscript ownership note to title pages, closed tear in folding map repaired, some browning and offsetting characteristic of American published books of the era; a very good and attractive set in uniform contemporary tree calf (a little scuffed at extremities) with original morocco labels. New York, Tiebout and O’Brien for Benjamin Gomez, 1796.

An excellent copy of the rare New York edition

Very scarce: the first substantial American edition of the official account of Cook’s third voyage; the Tiebout and O’Brien ‘Gomez’ edition. As with all eighteenth-century American imprints on Pacific voyages, this is a surprisingly rare work.

Two alternative or ‘surreptitious’ accounts had already been published (Ledyard’s and Rickman’s accounts appearing in Philadelphia in 1781 and 1783 respectively), but otherwise, the only editions to precede this important edition were heavily abridged accounts, published as single duodecimo volumes, sometimes with a frontispiece but otherwise unillustrated. Abridged versions were issued in 1793 (Philadelphia and New York), 1795 (Worcester, Mass.), and 1796 (Philadelphia and New York). These are all very rare – not one of them, for example, is recorded by Beddie in her Bibliography of Captain James Cook.

Not until 1796 did this much fuller version make it into print. It is clearly based on the London edition of 1784, but adds a life of Cook in the fourth volume. Forbes demonstrates that it was actually issued in 24 parts; accordingly the half titles are frequently lacking, as is the case with this set. Furthermore, he records a variant issue also by New York printers Tiebout and O’Brien bearing the imprint of the Philadelphia booksellers Benjamin and Jacob Johnson (not surprisingly mixed sets comprising volumes from the Gomez and Johnson editions have been located).

Despite being a much more substantial work than the American duodecimo editions, this Gomez edition is also very scarce. It is not recorded by Sabin, and there is no copy in the catalogue of the Hill collection; Beddie notes a single imperfect copy only held by the Mitchell Library. Forbes notes the scarcity of the large folding map that is often missing from this set.

Beddie, 1579; Forbes, ‘Hawaiian National Bibliography’, 259.

27.

LABILLARDIERE, Jacques J. H. de.

Voyage in search of La Pérouse, performed by order of the Constituent Assembly, during the years 1791, 1792, 1973, and 1794.

Two volumes octavo, with a large folding chart and 45 engraved plates; complete with three advertisement leaves at the end; some slight offsetting, a few leaves foxed; an excellent set in contemporary half calf. London, John Stockdale, 1800.

English edition of Labillardiere, from the library at Clonbrock

A fine set of Stockdale’s English edition of this very popular voyage account in which the republican Labillardière first described the voyage commanded by d’Entrecasteaux that set out to search for the mysteriously disappeared La Pérouse. Labillardière, botanist on the voyage, remains an important figure in early Australian science as the author of the first extensive monograph on Australian botany. The voyage spent many months on the coasts of Western Australia, just a year after Vancouver’s visit, and made two long visits to Tasmania, charting, botanising and exploring the coasts. The visits are remembered in numerous place names, most notably Recherche Archipelago and Recherche Bay, named for the expedition’s ship. Labillardière’s account is one of very few eighteenth-century accounts of Australian exploration, and the only major French account of the continent in the early settlement period to be published in the same century. The important narrative based on the commander, d’Entrecasteaux’s papers, did not appear until 1808 (see catalogue number 29).

According to the Hill catalogue this octavo version is the first English edition, though it and a quarto version appeared in the same year and there is no obvious priority. In fact altogether four slightly differing English versions were published in the same year, two

by Stockdale and two others by Debrett and Uphill. This handsome copy was once in the library at Clonbrock, the Irish house famous for the consistently fine condition of the books in its collection, which was dispersed in the 1970s.

Although designed to search – unsuccessfully as it turned out – for La Pérouse, this was a notable voyage in itself, and also beset by tragedy: the expedition was marred by illness, and D’Entrecasteaux himself was one of many to die during the voyage. It was the long-reaching effect of the French Revolution, however, that ultimately split the expedition in half. After reaching Java, the acting commander and ardent royalist D’Auribeau put himself under the protection of the Dutch authorities, while the Republicans among the officers and crew were imprisoned. On their eventual release, the prisoners were again taken and held by the British navy. Ultimately it was Sir Joseph Banks who ordered that the expedition’s journals, charts and natural history specimens be returned under a flag of truce. It was the journal of the Republican Labillardière, the expedition’s doctor and botanist, that was first published, while that of the commander D’Entrecasteaux had to wait until the restoration of the monarchy.

Ferguson, 310; Hill, 955; McLaren, ‘Lapérouse in the Pacific’, 57.

28.

BARRINGTON, George.

Russian title, transliterated: Puteschestivie w Botani-Bai.

Octavo, generally in good condition in its original Russian binding of quarter calf and marbled boards, edges a bit worn, spine rubbed, joints splitting but firm. Moscow, University Press, Lyubiya, Garia and Popov, 1803.

Very rare Russian Barrington: the “Voyage to Botany Bay”

A variant edition of the earliest, and for very many decades into the nineteenth century the only Russian Australiana: exceptionally rare. This is the first appearance in Russian of the Barrington narrative.

“At the other extremity of the Western world, Russian readers of the early nineteenth century also had the chance to become familiar with the putative work of the celebrated George Barrington after a translation of the Voyage was published by the Moscow University printer in 1803. The Russian translation was made from the French edition of the Voyage by Prince Alexsei Petrovich Golitsyn (1754-1811), a civil servant and office in the prestigious Guards corps stationed in St Petersburg. One recent writer [Glynn Barratt, The Russians and Australia, 1988] has described Golitsyn’s translation of the Voyage as a ‘huge success’ which ‘provoked a lasting Russian interest in the mechanics of transported convicts’ life’; the work was popular enough to merit a new edition in 1809.” (Garvey, p.142). Rickard discusses the 1809 edition and illustrates it at plate X. Published in 1803, this is one of two varying issues, the details of which become clearer in comparison between this and the only other copy recorded in Australia (Mitchell Library), which Ferguson notes was acquired from the Italian bookseller Otto Lange in 1937, and which remains the only example of the 1803 edition recorded by Worldcat. No copy of either issue was added in the Ferguson Addenda, and no early Russian Barrington has been noted since, either for sale or as having been acquired by any major library.

Broadly, the main text is identical in both copies, except for different page-numbering.

The preliminaries differ, with the contents page reset (but using the same devices and type, and with a very similar general look). The implication is that the publisher issued both a separate edition (Mitchell) and what was designed as part of a voyage anthology in the same year (the present copy). It is an interesting observation that the present copy is actually the better printed of the two, with improved clarity and inking, but it is probably idle to speculate about which is the first issue proper: it makes just as much sense to say that a collected edition was issued first and then excerpted, as vice versa. A detailed comparison can be supplied on request.

This first edition is not recorded by Sopikov (An Essay in Russian Bibliography, reprinted London, 1962), who did however refer to the 1809 anthology edition. Even the 1809 issue is rare, as neither Sopikov nor Garvey was able to examine a copy of that edition; similarly, neither knew of this variant 1803 issue.

Ferguson, 368 (ML only); Garvey, ‘George Barrington’, AB33 and p.142; Rickard, George Barrington’s Voyage to Botany Bay, plate X; Smirdinskoy, 3773; Sopikov, 9164 & 10990 (the later edition only).

D’ENTRECASTEAUX, Antoine Raymond Joseph de Bruni.

29.

Voyage de Dentrecasteaux, envoyé à la Recherche de La Pérouse.

Publié par ordre de sa Majesté l’Empereur et Roi… Rédigé par M. de Rossel, ancien capitaine de vaisseau.

Two volumes, quarto, with 32 folding engraved plates in volume I, and an Atlas, imperial folio, containing 39 charts and maps (29 double folding); original mottled boards, entirely uncut and with very generous margins; a few light stains in the text, some slight rubbing to bindings and wear to joints, inner hinges weak, spine of atlas renewed; but an outstanding copy in its original binding, boxed. Paris, de l’Imprimerie Imperiale, [1807]-1808.

The commander’s account of the voyage in search of La Perouse

First edition: the official commander’s account of the search for La Pérouse, published posthumously. The twelve magnificent maps of Western Australia and Tasmania in the fine Atlas record much of these coasts accurately for the first time and are among the most significant ever made. Of prime importance to Tasmania, it was D’Entrecasteaux’s explorations of 1792 and 1793 which focussed attention on the Derwent River area (now Hobart) as a suitable place for settlement.

No news of La Pérouse had been received for several years by the time this voyage was equipped. It was the 1791 intervention of Delattre and the Société d’Histoire Naturelle which finally forced the hand of the National Assembly and led to D’Entrecasteaux’s appointment. As a result, D’Entrecasteaux was given command of the Recherche and the Espérance, and sent to the Pacific the same year. No trace of La Pérouse was found, but the voyage made substantial geographical and scientific discoveries, most particularly along the west and southwest coasts of Australia and Tasmania. They also made important visits to New Caledonia, Tonga and the Santa Cruz Islands.

The expedition was marred by illness, and D’Entrecasteaux himself was one of many to die during the voyage. It was the long-reaching effect of the French Revolution, however, that ultimately split the expedition in half. After reaching Java, the acting commander and ardent royalist D’Auribeau put himself under the protection of the Dutch authorities, while the Republicans among the officers and crew were imprisoned. On their eventual release, the prisoners were again taken and held by the British navy. Ultimately it was Sir Joseph Banks himself who ordered that the expedition’s journals, charts and natural history specimens be returned under a flag of truce. The politics of the time explains why the first account of the voyage was that of the expedition’s doctor and botanist Labillardière, a fervent Republican (published in 1799), while this official account, edited by Rossel, did not appear until almost a decade later.

This is an excellent copy of a very scarce voyage account, of great relevance to Australia and the Pacific; the Atlas volume is in its correct first edition form, with the charts all present in their original issues. Copies are sometimes found with later issues.

Davidson, ‘A Book Collector’s Notes’, pp. 104-5; Ferguson, 461; Hill, 467; McLaren, ‘Lapérouse’, 49; Wantrup, 64a-64b.

[BAUDIN VOYAGE] PERON, François & Louis de FREYCINET. 30.

Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes, exécuté par ordre de Sa Majesté l’Empereur et Roi, sur les corvettes le Géographe, le Naturaliste, et la goélette Le Casuarina, pendant les années 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804.

Five volumes bound as six; the complete official edition, comprising two volumes quarto of narrative text; the two parts of the historical atlas as one volume quarto and the other a special large paper folio version; together with the “Partie Navigation”, comprising a quarto text volume and large folio hydrographical atlas; a few very sporadic instances of spotting; strictly contemporary bindings of quarter crimson morocco with marbled boards, flat spines lettered and banded in gilt, each binding done at time of publication to match an overall design but with some peculiarities of size and detail, the whole forming a large and quite dramatic and unusual set, in generally pristine condition, plates crisp and colouring bright. Paris, Imprimerie Impériale [Royale], 1807-1816-1807-1811-1815-1812.

Large paper copy of the full account, with the first Australian atlas

A magnificent complete set of the official account of the Baudin voyage, the only major French voyage to the “Terres Australes”. This set is in splendid condition, some volumes in their rare “large paper” versions, all volumes notably large with generous margins, and in a most striking and handsome contemporary binding. This is the full official account of the Baudin voyage, which is not often found complete; the navigational text and its accompanying atlas were for sale separately, and were not often added to copies of the narrative section, and are very much rarer.

This set was acquired by the Northern Lighthouse Board in Edinburgh as each volume was published between 1807 and 1816, and each volume must have been bound at the time of acquisition since the design is uniform but there are differences in detail of materials and finishing between the various volumes. Originally known as the Commissioners for Northern Lights, the Northern Lights (or Lighthouse) Board was founded in 1786 as the general lighthouse authority for Scotland. They were a wealthy body; their headquarters is still in the original grand Georgian building in George Street Edinburgh. They are famous of course for the sometimes daring lighthouse constructions undertaken off the coast of Scotland by and for them, particularly under the direction of their most famous engineer, Robert Stevenson. Their quite substantial library, concentrating on voyages and travels, has now been widely dispersed.

This set of the Baudin voyage has their distinctive gilt stamp on each spine as well as their ownership stamp on the back of each title-page. The set has a number of surprising features, with several of the volumes examples of the rare large paper versions which were published in extremely small numbers. A full detailed collation is available on request.

Ferguson, 449, 536, 603; Hill, 1329 (Historique); Wantrup, 78a (vol 1) & 78b (vol 2), 79a (part 1) & 79b (part 2), 80a, 81.

31.

D’APRES DE MANNEVILLETTE, J.-B.

Neptune Oriental…

Large folio atlas with 69 maps (many double-page), title-page and single contents leaf; in excellent condition, in nineteenth-century quarter calf (a bit worn at extremities) and green papered boards. Paris, Compagnie des Indes & Dépôt Génerale de la Marine, 1775–circa 1810.

Superb collection of marine maps by the great French hydrographer

Magnificent French marine atlas of the “eastern” oceans, updated to 1810 to provide a full working atlas for officers navigating towards the east, with routes to India, China and South-East Asia.

D’Après de Mannevillette (1707-1780), the son of a captain in the service of the Compagnie des Indes, made his first voyage to the Caribbean at the age of 19. Interested in cartography from a young age, he published the first edition of the ground-breaking Neptune Oriental in 1745. Some thirty years later, in 1775, he published a second edition, completely revised and greatly increased thanks to the information collected from the company logbooks at his disposal.

The present example is a yet further publication, with maps assembled from three different sources. Some 46 (of 69) maps originally derive from the 1775 edition of the Neptune Oriental; six maps are added from a separately-published supplement of 1781; and finally a further 17 French admiralty charts are added, based chiefly on the work of d’Après de Mannevillette, but many of them post-dating his death and most of them updated with recent surveys and discoveries. For example the magnificent double page chart of the Indian Ocean bears an engraved caption beneath the New Holland landmass that reads ‘tirée de la Carte génerale… rédigée par M.L. Freycinet en 1809’. This is the latest dated reference in the charts, suggesting a date of publication of around 1810.

By its nature, the Neptune Oriental was a changeable publication. A glance at the Shirley and Phillips catalogues reveals no systematic standardisation of the copies they collated.

Indeed, Shirley also records several variations of the 1775 second edition, each with differing totals. The composite nature of the atlas reflects d’Après de Mannevillette’s working methods at the Compagnie des Indes in painstakingly comparing and collating information from merchant and naval officers returned from the eastern oceans.

Three of the maps here that derive from the 1775 second edition of Neptune Oriental are in fact English maps, published at the instigation of Alexander Dalrymple for the Admiralty around 1770-1771. D’Après de Mannevillette enjoyed a long friendship with Dalrymple; indeed the accuracy of both hydrographers in many ways reflected their free and open correspondence. The inclusion of Dalrymple’s maps in such an official French publication is testament to the amicable collaboration that existed between official French and British cartographers working at the highest level.

Phillips, 3165-3168; Shirley, pp.1067-1068.

32.

D’APRES DE MANNEVILLETTE, J.-B.

Instructions de Daprès, sur la Navigation des Indes Orientales.

Octavo, title-page a little shorter than the body of text (which has generous margins); a few spots; in a superb contemporary binding of crimson roan leather, ornately gilt, spine richly gilt with fleur-de-lys devices at centre of each compartment between bands, dark green moiré silk endpapers with complex gilt dentelle borders, sides with wide gilt borders, royal arms of Louis Philippe in gilt at centre of each side. Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1819.

Special copy bound for Louis-Philippe, the last king of France

A splendid copy prepared in a royal binding, with the Bourbon arms, for the Duc d’Orléans, the future King Louis-Philippe.

At the time of publication of this work he had spent four years in Paris after returning from his long exile; a member of the court and a significant political figure throughout the Bourbon Restoration from 1815 to 1830, he finally ascended to the throne himself in 1830. He ruled France – the last king to do so – from 1830 to 1848.

This is the final edition of d’Après de Mannevillette’s Instructions, the publication of data to explain and supplement his maps of the eastern oceans, collectively published as the Neptune Oriental. The text of the Instructions was updated several times by d’Après de Mannevillette himself while he served as cartographer for the Compagnie des Indes, though further amendments followed his death in 1780.

A number of additions based on discoveries made in the early nineteenth century make this 1819 version the most comprehensive and authoritative edition. Like the Neptune Oriental itself (see previous item), the Instructions draws upon a wide range of sources to provide the most accurate information possible for navigating to the east. In addition to maps and published accounts by notable explorers, d’Après de Mannevillette used logbooks from company ships, first-hand testimony from officers, anecdotal accounts from sailors and a rich correspondence with Abbé Lacaille, Alexander Dalrymple and other respected geographers of the period. The Instructions was used to provide information for the East India Pilot published in London in 1782, an indispensable navigational resource that likewise passed into many editions.

33.

KRUSENSTERN, Ivan Fedorovich.

Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1803, 1804, 1805 und 1806 auf befehl seiner Kaiserlichen Majestät Alexander des Ersten auf den Schiffen Nadeshda und Newa…

Three volumes, quarto, in excellent condition; discreet library stamps; in original marbled boards with glazed labels; spines rubbed; a couple of old labels; something removed from head of spine of vol. 1; in generally excellent original condition, the three volumes in quarter morocco bookform boxes. St. Petersburg, Gedruckt in der Schnoorschen Buchdruckerey, 1810-1812.

The very rare St Petersburg printing

The Russian-printed German-language edition of Krusenstern’s own account of his voyage, the first Russian circumnavigation in which he was accompanied by a brilliant corps of officers, including men like Lisiansky, Langsdorff, and Kotzebue. The voyage was of great importance to Pacific history for the Russian attempt to open Japan to commerce, and for the observations made on the Russian-Chinese trade. The Nadeshda and the Neva were together at the Marquesas and Hawaii; there they separated and from this point on Krusenstern’s narrative of his part of the voyage concerns the western Pacific.

These three volumes, published in St. Petersburg over a three-year period, represent the complete text of the voyage in its first appearance in German. An accompanying Atlas that appeared two years later is only very rarely found with the text today. The three volumes appeared shortly after each of the three volumes of the Russian-language edition of the text was published over a period of four years (Puteshtestvie vokrug sieta, St Petersburg 1809-1812).

An Atlas of plates prepared in St Petersburg to accompany the Russian-language edition was published a year after the final volume of the Russian text in 1813. In 1814 the German-language version of the Atlas appeared with some changes to the original plates including the addition of German captions.

All components of both editions are very rare on the market; nor are they widely held in institutions.

In Australia the full Russian edition (text and Atlas) is held only by the National Library and the State Library of New South Wales. However, according to Trove at least, no copy of the important St Petersburg printing of the German language account is held by either library; a single example of the text volumes is recorded at the State Library of Victoria.

The work is very much better known from the subsequent simplified edition in German published shortly afterwards by Haude and Spener in Berlin.

Krusenstern has chosen a wonderful epithet from the voyage historian De Brosses to put on the three title-pages of his narrative: “Les Marins écrivent mal, mais avec assez de candour” [“Sailors write badly, but with great honesty”].

Anker, 272; Forbes, ‘Hawaiian National Bibliography’, 407; Lada-Mocarski, 62.

34.

LANGSDORFF, Georg Heinrich von.

Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World, during the years 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806 and 1807.

Two volumes quarto, with a frontispiece portrait, 21 engraved plates, and a folding map; a few light stains but a very good copy in contemporary half russia leather, spines lettered in gilt and decorated in gilt and blind, marbled boards and edges; bookplates of Castle Forbes. London, Henry Colburn, 1813.

Langsdorff’s account of the Krusenstern expedition to the Pacific

Rare: a particularly attractive copy of the first edition in English. Langsdorff was physician and naturalist on board the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe on the Neva under Krusenstern. He went around Cape Horn to Kamschatka, making stops at the Marquesas and Hawaii. At Kamschatka, he left the expedition and proceeded on the Maria with Nicolai Rezanov, a Russian official who was commissioned to study the Russian American Company in Alaska and to conduct trade negotiations with Japan. Langsdorff states that, though they were politely but firmly refused, their Japanese visit was “the most interesting part of our expedition”, devoting nearly 100 pages to their stay at Nagasaki. In their spare time they constructed a Montgolfier-type balloon and made the first aerial ascent in Japan.

The narrative contains a lengthy record of their stay in the Marquesas, and a ‘fuller account of Sitka and the settlement of San Francisco than any other contemporary account’ (Sabin).

The plates include eight of the Marquesas, five of Japan, three of Alaska and two of California. The two plates depicting men from Nuka Hiva in the Marquesas displaying their extraordinary tattooing are justly famous.

Cowan, pp. 282-3; Hill, 969; Judd, 101; Kroepelien, 708; O’Reilly-Reitman, 735.

35.

RAFFLES, Thomas Stamford.

The History of Java.

Two volumes, quarto, large folding map hand-coloured in outline, 66 plates including ten coloured aquatints by William Daniell, nine half-page views in the text as well as several tables, some light scattered foxing as common; an excellent set in contemporary sprinkled calf, spines neatly rebacked with the original spines laid down, double labels, banded in gilt. London, Black, Parbury, Allen and Murray, 1817.

Large paper copy of the classic history of Java

First edition, the large paper issue. This classic history of Java was written by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781-1826), the English colonial administrator and founder of modern Singapore. Raffles was one of the central figures of British influence in Asia, and early made a study of the history and culture of the Malay peninsula. He was part of the force that subdued the Dutch-French force in Java in 1811, and the same year was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of the region. Howgego has noted that for ‘almost five years Raffles governed the island with considerable success, improving its commerce by the abolition of earlier trading practices and embargoes, and regarding it as the possible “centre of an Eastern insular Empire”.’ He made sweeping reforms which proved short-lived, but also used his time to work on this great history of the region, long considered definitive.

Raffles returned to England in 1816 where he prepared this work for publication. This large paper edition was published in an edition of just 250 copies, and is well-known for the high quality of the images, printed on fine paper. The text of the large-paper edition has the watermark “W. Balston & Co., 1815”, as here. There was also an edition on ordinary paper of 650 copies.

The book covers a wide range of subjects including anthropology, natural history, and language. The plates are of great beauty and interest, notably the ten fine coloured aquatints

by William Daniell which depict Javanese scenes in great detail. Other plates illustrate cultural, religious and daily life in Java, the majority in the medium of soft-ground etching with aquatint: these images are after drawings by Captain Godfrey P. Baker and the Dutch surveyor and engineer H.C. Cornelis, who with J.W.B. Wardenaar supplied Raffles with other drawings of Javanese antiquities.

Abbey, ‘Travel’, 554; Tooley, 391.

36.

[EAST INDIA COMPANY] SCOTT, Robert.

Illustrated logbook of India and China voyages by the East India Company ships Marquis of Huntly and Asia.

Two manuscript logs in a single contemporary volume, folio, with a total of 18 watercolours of various sizes bound in, the logbook of the “Marquis of Huntly” 86 leaves, the logbook of the “Asia” 83 leaves, printed pages completed in extensive manuscript, written throughout in a neat and legible hand, marginal fragments of some now missing additions; contemporary reverse calf, red morocco label gilt to front, some wear and scuffed at extremities, early repairs, uncommonly good. At sea, 1817-1819 & 1819-1821.

Original midshipman’s log of two East India Company voyages to China

An unusually fine Midshipman’s logbook in excellent original condition, detailing two voyages of English East India Company ships to India and China. The two ships were the Marquis of Huntley and the Asia, and both logs were compiled by one Robert Scott, midshipman on the first ship and fifth officer on the latter. The logs, written throughout in a clear and legible hand, give extensive details of the two voyages, including weather conditions, provisioning, ships encountered, dangerous shoals and coastal reefs, trials on board, and much else of interest. Both logs start in Blackwall, the home port of the Honourable East India Company from 1803.

The volume also includes a series of fine small watercolours of coastal views by Scott, the highlight a view of the British settlement at Molucca, showing four large vessels riding at anchor.

The first log is for the 1817-19 voyage of the Marquis of Huntly (captain Donald McLeod), built by Barnard in 1811 and a Company ship for over two decades. The log includes a list of the ship’s company, with about a dozen notes on punishments and misdemeanours recorded against various of the crew. One of the reasons for the voyage was evidently the transporting of all manner of passengers, as Scott also names Company “Recruits”, “Women & Children on board”, and “Marine Boys from the Marine Society for the Bombay Marine”. A particularly interesting tipped-in sheet for Saturday 28 March 1818 details Scott’s observations regarding some rocks which were observed under the ship’s bottom, sailing near the Seychelles; the keeping of detailed comments on rocks and shoals was one of the most important tasks of officers on board ship.

Scott’s second log is for the 1819-21 voyage of the Asia (captain T.F. Balderston). Lloyds confirms that the Asia was also built in 1811, registered as a 956 ton vessel owned by H. Bonham. Here Scott’s list of officers and crew is large, accompanied by the usual notes about punishments. The Asia was clearly being used as a troop ship, with some 150 soldiers being taken to Bengal, together with 9 women, 3 children and 25 other officer passengers.

Most of the views are of the dangerous waters of South-east Asia, many around Singapore (a full listing available on request).

37.

FREYCINET, Louis de.

Voyage autour du monde, entrepris par ordre du Roi… exécuté sur les corvettes de S. M. l’Uranie et la Physicienne, pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820.

A fine set, comprising a complete run of the text volumes, accompanied by the four large folio atlases; containing altogether 355 engraved plates, maps or plans, 119 of them in colour; overall in very good condition in French half calf; a detailed collation and description is available on request. Paris, Pillet aîné, and Imprimerie Royale, 1824- 1844.

Freycinet’s crowning achievement: the work of two decades.

Louis de Freycinet’s crowning achievement. This is a fine set of this magnificent voyage publication, entirely complete (unlike many sets) and in excellent condition. Freycinet’s voyage in the Uranie to the East Indies, Australia and the Pacific was one of the most important voyages of exploration ever made. This official publication of the voyage, which appeared over twenty years under the direct supervision of Freycinet himself, is among the most handsome of all voyage accounts, probably the most beautiful of all the celebrated French grands voyages.

The ten volumes of text are accompanied by four large atlases, containing a total of some 320 engraved plates (120 of them in colour) and 35 maps, many of these coloured by hand. The plates are partly derived from original paintings and drawings done on the expedition chiefly by the two official artists, Jacques Arago and Alphonse Pellion, and partly on natural history specimens taken back to Paris. The Atlas Historique contains 16 views and plates of Australia, 32 of Guam and the Marianas, nine of Hawaii and 16 of Timor.

The full publication of the voyage took twenty years of Freycinet’s life and was finally completed two years after his death. This remarkably long process of publication very likely accounts for the dearth of complete sets today; indeed Ferguson records only two extensive sets of this magnificent publication in Australian libraries – the Mitchell and National Library copies, the latter incomplete.

A full collation is available on request.

Borba de Moraes, p.327; Chadenat, 5058; Ferguson, 941; ‘Hawaii One Hundred’, 33; Hill, 649 (Historique section only); Sabin, 25916.

38.

KING, Phillip Parker.

Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia. Performed between the years 1818 and 1822… With an Appendix, containing various subjects relating to Hydrography and Natural History…

Two volumes, octavo, with a folding chart, 13 plates and a folding engraving; bound with the colophon leaf required by Ferguson at the end of volume 2, and complete with the final leaf of errata (intended to be cut to form two errata slips); an excellent copy in contemporary half calf.

London, John Murray, 1826.

Presentation copy from Phillip Parker King to a fellow author

First edition, first issue, and a famous rarity: the British voyage commissioned to continue the Australian survey begun by Flinders, and to keep a weather eye on the results of the much grander French expedition under Freycinet, commissioned the same year.

This is a fine presentation copy of this work, with an inscription in the second volume to “J.E. Gray Esq. from the Author”. John Edward Gray (1800-1875) was a senior naturalist at the British Museum, a position which made him one of the central figures in the study of Australian specimens collected by the explorers King, Stokes, Jukes, Eyre and George Grey. Gray contributed a very important appendix to the present work, which is no doubt why he was given this early presentation copy. The second volume, of course, is where Gray’s work is printed, which must explain the unusual placement of the inscription.

We know that Gray must have been one of the first to receive a copy of this work, because this is the very elusive form of this important book with the publication date of 1826 on both title-pages. The book was properly published in 1827, with the title-pages reset to show that date. The only complete copy of this earlier version known to Ferguson was in the State Library of Victoria; a number of copies have appeared since that time, but this true first issue remains very difficult to find.

Admiral Phillip Parker King, Australian-born son of the third governor Philip Gidley King, became the navy’s leading hydrographer. His coastal voyages and Oxley’s expeditions inland were the great expansionary undertakings of the Macquarie era. Despatched to complete Flinders’ interrupted survey and firmly to establish Great Britain’s claim to the north coast, King charted the greater part of the west, north and northeast coasts of Australia and also carried out important surveys in the Barrier Reef. His hydrographical work is still the basis of many of the modern charts for the areas he surveyed.

Davidson, ‘A Book Collector’s Notes’, pp. 127-8; Hill, 927 (1827 issue); Ingleton, pp. 38-48; not in Abbey; Wantrup, 84a.

[BOUGAINVILLE] TOUANNE, Vicomte Edmond de la.

39.

Album pittoresque de la frégate La Thétis et de la corvette l’Espérance. Collection de dessins relatifs à leur voyage autour du monde en 1824, 1825 et 1826…

Folio, seven original parts in four “livraisons” as issued, with 35 superb images, 28 of them as separate lithographs and seven of them large vignettes in the text; an exceptionally good copy, uncut and unpressed, with very large margins, and unbound as issued in the very rare original printed parts wrappers; in a fitted case. Paris, chez Bulla, 1828.

Uncut copy of a famous illustrated voyage account, with much on NSW.

A superb copy of the first published account of the important voyage of Hyacinthe de Bougainville in the Thétis (1824-26) with its very fine series of views, published fully nine years before the official account of this voyage.

Hyacinthe de Bougainville, son of the great eighteenth-century navigator, sailed as an eighteen-year-old ensign on the Baudin voyage. After distinguished service in the Napoleonic Wars, he was given command of the Thétis, only the second French frigate to be commissioned for a circumnavigation, the first having been his father’s ship the Boudeuse.

Edmond de la Touanne, a friend and protégé of Bougainville (and referred to in Bougainville’s journal as ‘faithful companion of my travels’), sailed as a lieutenant on the expedition. Because of the haste with which the expedition was manned, no official artist was sent; as Bougainville himself noted, no pictorial record of the expedition would have survived but for De la Touanne’s sketches.

The expedition’s most important visit was to Sydney where they stayed three months.

Having been given secret orders to report on the defence of British settlements, the French officers travelled as widely as possible within the colony. Their investigations of Botany Bay, Camden, the Warragamba River and the Blue Mountains are well recorded in Bougainville’s diaries (translated as The Governor’s Noble Guest, Miegunyah, 1999).

This rare and beautiful voyage album has considerable Australian textual content, as well as the three famous views of the Nepean River that resulted from their inland travels: a view of the Nepean where it is joined by Glenbrook Creek, with kangaroos on the river bank and a group of Aborigines in the middle distance; a view of the Norton Waterhole on the Nepean River with members of the expedition being rowed across the river in two boats watched by a group of Aborigines; and a view of the Nepean Gorge below Macarthur’s house Camden Park. There is also a fine engraved vignette of the expedition’s ships under sail south of Tasmania, in the heavy seas which forced them to abandon their visit to Hobart and continue directly to Port Jackson.

The album is an essential companion to Bougainville’s official account which when finally published nine years later would include a further seven Australian views after De la Touanne.

Dictionary of Australian Artists Online, Touanne; Ferguson, 1204; Hill, 161; Sabin, 6874.

40.

BEECHEY, Captain F.W.

Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering’s Strait, to co-operate with the Polar Expeditions: performed in His Majesty’s Ship Blossom…

Two volumes, quarto, with two large folding engraved maps, a double-page map, 23 plates (including four double-page); a little light spotting, less than usual, just noticeably affecting a few plates; bound without the half-titles and without the sometimes found advertisement leaf, but with the rare errata slip called for by Forbes and Hill (at start of vol. II); contemporary polished olive calf gilt, spines gilt in compartments between raised bands with double labels; slight rubbing to covers but a really good set. London, Henry Colburn, 1831.

The Admiralty issue of a famous English voyage

First edition of ‘one of the most valuable of modern voyages’ (Sabin). This is a particularly handsome set of the full-size (“Admiralty” issue) quarto first edition on larger paper, scarce today with the reduced octavo version of the same year more often seen.

HMS Blossom was commissioned as a relief expedition to Bering Strait to meet Parry and Franklin on their search for a Northwest passage, and to explore the areas of the Pacific on her route. The ship visited Easter Island, the Mangarevas (on which Beechey was the first European to land), sailed through the Tuamotus, reached Tahiti and made two significant stops in Hawaii. Beechey gives an especially good description of life in Hawaii in narrating his second visit, the significance of which is discussed in full by David Forbes in the Hawaiian National Bibliography.

At Kamchatka Beechey learned of Parry’s return, and spent July to October in Kotzebue Sound, tragically missing Franklin near Point Barrow, Alaska, by just fifty leagues. The next year he continued his exploration of the Arctic, entering Kotzebue Sound from the west. Additionally his book gives good accounts of his stops at San Francisco, Monterey, and Okinawa.

Beechey also describes his important visit to Pitcairn Island, and publishes the detailed description of the mutiny on the Bounty that was told to him by John Adams, the last of the survivors. The fine engravings include two views of Pitcairn, one of California, and five of Okinawa.

Ferguson, 1418; Forbes, ‘Hawaiian National Bibliography’, 772; Hill, 93; Judd, 16; Lada-Mocarski, 95; O’Reilly-Reitman, 849; Zamorano, ‘Eighty’, 4.

41.

CARY, George and John.

Pair of Globes: Cary’s New Terrestrial Globe… shewing the whole of the New Discoveries with the Tracks of the Principal Navigators… [and] Cary’s New Celestial Globe… Whole of the Stars and Nebulae contained in the Catalogues of Herschel, Bode, Prazzi, Koch &c.

Pair of 15-inch table globes (380 mm. diameter), height overall 540 mm.; each made up from twelve sets of gores; complete with brass meridian circles and hour rings, on original mahogany stands; somewhat darkened by age but in good original condition. London, G. & J. Cary, 1832.

A matched pair: Terrestrial and Celestial Cary globes

A fine pair of late-Georgian globes, one terrestrial and the other astronomical, by the leading firm of Cary. The terrestrial globe is a particularly good example, liberally annotated with the navigational routes of several early Pacific explorers, notably Cook and Flinders, La Pérouse and Vancouver. All three Cook voyages are shown with the location of his death marked in the Sandwich Islands. The celestial globe includes all the figures of the constellations, which were not always included. It also necessarily illustrates current knowledge of the stars and constellations of the Southern Hemisphere, including the discoveries of Edmund Halley and Abbé de Lacaille.

For two generations Cary globes represented the high-water mark of nineteenth-century mapping. The company was founded in 1792 by John Cary, perhaps the pre-eminent map maker of his generation, described by his biographer Sir Herbert Fordham as ‘the most prominent and successful exponent of his time… the founder of what we may call the modern English school’. He was famous for his insistence upon absolute geographical accuracy and was considered ‘a member of a new class of mapmaker, concentrating on geographical excellence rather than on decoration…’ (Lister).

John Cary had a long partnership with his brother William (1759-1825), who was also a manufacturer of optical and mathematical instruments. The firm enjoyed considerable

commercial success until its closure in 1850. Both of the globes now offered are signed “G. and J. Cary” for the two sons of John, George and John. The two boys took over the running of the firm around 1821 (although John senior was still involved with the company at the time these globes were published).

It is difficult today to find matching pairs of early globes, although originally they were almost always sold in this way. These are in excellent original condition.

British Map Engravers , pp. 130-3; Lister, p. 43; Van der Krogt ‘Old Globes in the Netherlands’, p. 77.

42.

ARAGO, Jacques.

Souvenirs d’un aveugle. Voyage autour du monde…

Four volumes, octavo, with two portrait frontispieces and 60 hand-coloured lithographic plates (six folding); an excellent set aside from moderate scattered foxing and a handful of browned plates resulting from differing paper stocks (as usual), bound in uniform contemporary French quarter calf, flat spines lettered in gilt and decorated in blind. Paris, Gayet et Lebrun, 1840.

One of the most prized Pacific or Australian colour-plate books

The rare third and best edition in which the sixty lithographs appear in handsome original colouring. This is the only edition of Arago’s famous classic account of his circumnavigation in the Uranie with Freycinet in which the plates appear in this coloured form, and is only seldom seen on the market.

The lively and personal narrative by the expedition’s eccentric artist is especially interesting for Western Australia, New South Wales, Hawaii and the islands of Micronesia. The eccentricity of both illustrations and narrative in Arago’s account when first published (as Promenade autour du monde) made it very popular, and it was of course within the budget of the normal reader (whereas Freycinet’s official narrative in its long series of volumes cost about a hundred times more, much as it does today).

By the time this substantially different version of his book reached the public, Arago had lost his sight, hence the new title used for the work of Souvenirs d’un aveugle (Memories of a Blind Man). As noted in the catalogue of the Hill collection of one of the earlier uncoloured issues, this version is often erroneously catalogued as a later edition of Arago’s Promenade, when in fact the narrative has been considerably enriched and Arago shows an even more witty and elaborate style, especially with the lively plates.

The lovely handcolouring of this edition means that Arago’s wonderful depictions of the Pacific are here given full rein. Volume III of this work is almost entirely devoted to Hawaii, with portraits of Young, and Queen Kanoé, alongside many other scenes: the elaborate and colourful headgear and dress of the Hawaiian warriors is especially beautiful.

Of equal interest is the large section of the book devoted to Australia, with no less than five plates depicting Aborigines of New Holland. These include evocative depictions after Péron (artist for the official Baudin voyage account), as well as Arago’s own images, including a duel in New South Wales, a fierce Maori warrior bailed up by a dandy with two flint-lock pistols, and an Aboriginal man climbing a tree – to the amazement of a European in candy-stripe pants.

Ferguson knew only the Mitchell Library copy of the work; Forbes gives a fuller census, but could still list only three more copies (Kahn Collection, Hawaiian Mission Children’s Society Library in Honolulu, and private collection). Occasionally sets of this edition have a fifth supplementary volume entitled “Chasses – Drame”, but since the 15 plates in that volume were issued without colouring, and in fact it was produced by a quite different publisher, it is only rarely added to a set.

Ferguson, 2906; Forbes, ‘Hawaiian National Bibliography’, 1189; Hill, 30 (earlier uncoloured version).

43.

[HOBART OBSERVATORY].

Ross Bank Magnetic Observatory for Captn. James Clark Ross with Mr. Kay’s Compts. [inscribed thus on backing board].

Original watercolour, 240 x 440 mm, in very good original condition; mounted and framed retaining the original backing board with its early presentation inscription.

An extraordinary moment: three polar exploration heroes together in 1840

A remarkable watercolour capturing a precise and significant historical moment: three of the greatest polar explorers stand together in conversation at the newlycreated Rossbank Observatory, Hobart, Tasmania in 1840. In formal dress with his back to the artist is John Franklin, then Governor of Tasmania, speaking with Captain James Clark Ross (to his far right, with a dog) and Captain Francis Crozier. Of the three men, whose lives were closely intertwined, only Ross would survive the extraordinary series of expeditions that would follow.

This poignant image was painted between September and the beginning of November 1840; the presentation inscription on the original backing board shows that it was prepared for Ross himself (“Ross Bank Magnetic Observatory for Capt. James Clark Ross with Mr Kay’s Compts.”). Lieutenant Joseph Kay had arrived in Hobart with Ross on HMS Terror, but rather than continuing with them to the Antarctic he stayed on in Hobart to run the newly constructed Observatory. He maintained detailed magnetic and meteorological readings and cooperated in programmes of international geophysical science. Australia’s first geophysicist, he was elected to the Royal Society of London in 1846 for his work on geomagnetism. We cannot determine whether Joseph Kay painted the watercolour himself or arranged for it to be done in order to present it to Ross, as Kay’s inscription is ambiguous on this score; it is certainly the work of a skilled artist. Naval officers of this period were required to have competence in recording landscape but this strong and detailed image demonstrates much more than mere competence.

The Ross Bank Observatory in Hobart (now known as Rossbank), established in 1840 by James Clark Ross to measure the magnetism of the area, was a key component in what has been described as one of the first global scientific experiments, in which a chain of observatories around the world would compare readings to obtain magnetic and meteorological data. The Observatory, financed by the British Admiralty, was in use until 1853. Illustrated overleaf this painting clearly shows (from the left) the map house, the anemometer, the dipping needle, the magnetometer, the vibrating and the transit instruments. Today the remains are part of Government House in Hobart.

The erection and operation of the Observatory was one of the explicit aims of the expedition of the Erebus and the Terror, two ruggedly-built three-masters originally used for carrying mortars which set out from England on what would be a four-year voyage to Antarctica in 1839 with Ross on the Erebus in overall command while his naval colleague and closest friend Francis Crozier commanded the Terror.

Ross’s instructions were to sail to Tasmania in order to set up this permanent station for making magnetic observations; en route similar observatories were established at St Helena Island and the Cape of Good Hope. Sir John Franklin, who maintained a close friendship with both men, gave his support as Governor of Tasmania to the construction of the Observatory which was completed by 200 convicts in only nine days. Ross noted ‘that the convicts assigned to the construction of the observatory were most disappointed at not being able to work past 10 on a Saturday night, despite having started at 6 in the morning…’ (Robson, History of Tasmania, p. 77).

The Erebus and Terror had arrived in Hobart in mid-August 1840, at which time both French and American expeditions, under Dumont d’Urville and Wilkes, were also in southern waters searching for the magnetic South Pole. The three nations were in rivalry to establish territorial claims – the very claims which affect the ownership of Antarctica to this day. Nonetheless when the two English ships sailed from Hobart for the Antarctic on 12 November 1840, Ross was using navigational charts given to him by Wilkes.

It is Ross who is credited with having marked the position of the south magnetic Pole.

Ross and Crozier undertook two subsequent expeditions into Antarctic waters, one from Hobart in November 1841 and the final voyage from the Falkland Islands in December 1842. Ross published his narrative as A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions (London, 1847).

The three men’s lives would further connect in a macabre way. The Erebus and Terror sailed again from England in 1845, headed for northern waters to search for a Northwest Passage. The Irish-born Francis Crozier, who participated in altogether six expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic and in 1843 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his outstanding work on magnetism, had been considered for the command but ultimately was passed over in favour of the more distinguished Sir John Franklin, to whom he acted as second-in-command.

We now know that the expedition perished in the northern winters of 1847 and 1848, but the mysterious absence of communications from the explorers left great doubt at the time and a series of relief and search expeditions was sent out. In 1848 Ross himself was given command of one of the first expeditions mounted to find his old friends. As it turned out, Franklin had already been dead for a year, as the discovery some years later of a note left by Crozier in a cairn on King William Island would establish. Crozier took over the command after Franklin’s death but by 1848 it seems that he and all 105 remaining survivors had died, with a total loss of all 129 personnel from the expedition.

Of the three explorers who stood in discussion in the Observatory grounds of Rossbank in the Spring of 1840 only Ross, to whom this picture was presented, would survive the polar explorations, dying in his bed at the age of 62 in Aylesbury, England in 1862.

44.

LECONTE, François.

Mémoires pittoresques d’un Officier de Marine, par F. Leconte, Capitaine de vaisseau, Officier de la Légion-d’Honneur.

Two volumes, octavo, owner’s signature on versos of half-titles; a good copy in contemporary French quarter calf and marbled boards. Brest, Le Pontois, 1851.

A French naval officer in the South Pacific

A rare Pacific voyage account, not often offered for sale presumably because, as O’ReillyReitman points out, the publisher Le Pontois went into liquidation shortly after publication and the remaining stock of the book was burned. The title is not recorded by Ferguson, despite considerable Australian material, nor by the Hill catalogue, Hocken or Bagnall.

These are the extensive memoirs of a French naval officer of some interest. Towards the end of his distinguished and well-travelled career, Leconte (1791-1872) was given command of the corvette La Seine in 1845 for a voyage of scientific exploration in the South Pacific, which was also to take 200 soldiers to Tahiti.

He gives a very full account of the voyage, during which they visited New Zealand (Ankaroa) and Tonga and other Pacific islands. They made a long visit to New Caledonia, where they carried out scientific and cartographic work, but eventually the ship was wrecked on the New Caledonian coast. Some sailors were rescued by a Port Jackson vessel and eventually the Arabian, sent to their rescue from Sydney, took the remainder of the personnel back to Sydney.

Leconte spent a month in Sydney, royally entertained to his great delight by Governor Fitzroy and much of the Sydney establishment, including visits to notables such as Wentworth at Vaucluse. Grand dinners were the order of the day for this stylish visitor: “Ma figure un peu longue, mon front chauve, mon air froid et mesuré paraissaient plaire à tout le monde; je sus comme à Calcutta me faire la réputation d’un bon gentleman…”.

Not in Ferguson; O’Reilly-Reitman, 1097.

45.

NOURY, Charles-Gaëtan.

Album Polynésien.

Folio, 15 loose lithographic plates printed in colour (plate 3 misnumbered “1”), with lithographed title-page and single sheet of description, finely printed on sheets of “Rives” and “Blauw” artists’ paper; in the original stiff blue card wrappers, manuscript half-title “Album Polynésien”, manuscript presentation from one of the lithographers Girardot, simple manuscript label to front, an excellent copy in a modern morocco box. Nantes, O. Merson, 1861.

Rare and beautiful study of tattooing in the South Pacific

Exceptionally uncommon and most beautiful work on tattooing, ethnography and decorative carving in the Marquesas, ‘d’un grand intérêt ethnographique’ (O’Reilly). The quality of the illustrated plates is outstanding, and lithography proves to be a marvellous medium for conveying the immediacy of the original sketches; this very rare work, an important record of French Polynesia in the South Pacific, is almost unknown on the market.

Published by a tiny lithographic press in the author’s home-town of Nantes, this copy has a manuscript presentation by one of the lithographers who worked on the plates, Girardot; a similar presentation is also recorded on the copy in the Mitchell Library. The illustrations show an extraordinary array of Marquesan artefacts, including native surgical instruments, instruments for making tapa, a coconut shell fashioned into a cover for the wound left by the practice of trepanning, designs carved into whale teeth, idols (including one meant to be suspended from canoe prows), as well as bracelets, decorative clubs, a “war conch” and other sculptures.

Charles-Gaëtan Noury (1809-1868) was a French naval officer who was born in Nantes.

He was promoted capitaine de corvette and second-in-command of the Sirène in 1846, bound for the Pacific. The ship arrived at Papeete in May 1847 where captain Lavaud took over the shore command, leaving Noury in command of the Sirène. Noury served for one year as the commandant of Nuka-Hiva, the main French settlement in the Marquesas, where he became a student of local customs. The Sirène returned to France after four years, and Noury continued to serve in the French Navy until 1864. In his retirement he worked on Polynesian natural history and linguistics, and took stock of his admired collection of South Sea curiosities: given the date of publication here, it is probably fair to assume that the illustrations depict items in his collection (where are they now?). Noury is not a well-known figure, but there is a biography in O’Reilly, Tahitiens (1975).

The Marquesan group was claimed for the USA in 1813 by Commodore David Porter, a claim that was never ratified. In 1842 the French took possession of the group, establishing a settlement on Nuka-Hiva that was ultimately abandoned in 1859. French control over the group was re-established in 1870 as part of French Polynesia.

Material relating to the earliest phase of French settlement in Nuka-Hiva is surpassingly scarce. Only three other copies of Noury’s work have been located internationally: Koninklijk Bibliotheek (Netherlands), Mitchell Library, and the Turnbull Library NZ; the Mitchell copy was acquired by David Scott Mitchell personally.

O’Reilly-Reitman, 5289a.

Hordern House Rare Books Pty. Ltd. ACN 050 963 669 77 Victoria Street, Potts Point, Sydney 2011 NSW, Australia First published by Hordern House Rare Books Pty. Ltd. Produced by Hordern House Rare Books Pty. Ltd. Copyright Š Hordern House Rare Books Pty. Ltd. 2013 ISBN: 978-1-875567-70-6 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Hordern House Rare Books Pty. Ltd.