Non-fiction | Archive | Voyager Rare Books Maps & Prints

The Retospect: Or, Review of Providential Mercies: With Anecdotes of Various Characters, and an Address to Naval Officers – Aliquis (Richard Marks)

The author was formerly a Lieutenant in the Rpyal Navy, and now a Minister in the Established Church

Published in London by James Nisbet of Oxford Street, 1816, a first edition.

A contemporary half leather binding. 12mo. 239 pages. Green leather spine and corners over marbled boards. Corners lightly rubbed and scuffed but nicely presented and tightly bound. Spine with 5 raised bands with blind-stamp decorated compartments and original red leather title label. Clean text throughout. A very good copy of this scarce book especially the 1816 edition.

Marks, Richard (1778–1847) was born in 1778 at North Crawley, Buckinghamshire, the son of Thomas and Mary Marks. Enlisting in the wartime navy in 1797, he found a ready outlet for a self-described partiality for water, gunpowder, and ‘deeds of dangerous enterprise. Here he recalls how he immediately immersed himself in the opportunities for ‘unabated licentiousness’ of contemporary shipboard life, ‘the broad road of destruction, loud in blasphemy, and ever ready to burlesque the Holy Scriptures’. Two narrow escapes from shipwreck in successive ships seemed only to confirm him in a life he openly describes as deliberate rebellion against God. After returning to England in 1810, following thirteen years of unrelenting sea service, Marks relinquished prospects of further advancement in the navy in order to follow an inner call to the ministry. He was admitted to Magdalene College, Cambridge and in 1813 he was ordained as a priest. He gave up his naval half pay, and served an initial seven-year curacy in a remote village parish. From 1820, following these ‘wilderness years’, as he later called them, he ministered for the remaining quarter century of his active life among ‘the humble cottagers’ of Buckinghamshire, as vicar of Great Missenden

Aliquis had experience

$120.00

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Mendel’s Principles of Heredity – W Bateson

Full red/burgundy leather binding and beautifully gilt embossed all edges richly gilt from the Classics of Medicine Library 1990. Very good condition 296 pages. With coloured plates and figures in the text. A facsimile of the famous 1909 published work by W Bateson.

Mendel understood how it works

$50.00

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S Petri Basilica – Giovanni Faldo – c1670

An original copper engraving by distinguished Italian 17th century architect, draftsman, engraver Giovanni Battista Faldo (1648-1678) published by Giovanni Giacomo De Rosis (1627-1691) a leading publisher in Rome a firm established by his father many years earlier.

A superb example on folio sized hand laid paper. The strong image taking central position measuring 30cms x 17cms.

A lovely early example of St Peter’s Basilica

$120.00

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Report on British New Guinea, from data and notes by the late Sir peter scratchley, Her Majesty’s special commissioner – 1886

Mr. G. Seymour Fort, private secretary to the late Sir Peter Scratchley, presents a report on British New Guinea, from data and notes by the late Sir Peter Scratchley, her majesty’s special commissioner. A very important document regarding exploration to determine the best approach to problems resulting from annexation, natives, superstition, murder, rape, missionaries, financing and administration.

The report examines, in great detail; administration and appointment of officers as necessary with the key perspective being the current position of the country, its general characteristics and, somewhat importantly, complaints of the natives against white men and of white men against natives that would require swift resolution. The examination of pressing issues continues including the killing of white men, industry and judicial proceedings, missionaries, minerals, natural products, rainfall, rivers and, a key examination of the special nature of New Guinea’s relationship with Queensland.

A key piece of colonial New Guinea’s history – Scratchley established a Colony.

$290.00

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Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics Census Bulletin No. 8 – Territory of New Guinea – 4th April 1921

A nicely bound edition of the Territory of New Guinea Census Bulletin No. 8 pertaining to the Census of the Commonwealth of Australia, 4th April, 1921, prepared by the Commonwealth Statistician under instructions from the Minister of State for Home and Territories.

This bulletin begins in marvelous detail with an introduction of the census operation and its objectives including a general description of the lands and their native populations before examining its history, from discovery, the period prior to German annexation, the Neu Guinea Kompagnie, the period of Imperial control, capture by the Australian and Military Administration, Australian Mandate and concluding with the New Guinea Act 1920.

The bulletin then examines economic development of the area; disposal of land, agriculture, domestic animals, timber resources, marine products, mining, shipping, commerce, principal settlements, exports, imports and use of native labour. The bulletin concludes with the census data itself examining dwellings and population, native, European and Asiatic.

$120.00

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Report on the military occupation of the German New Guinea possession – 1922 – With Very Large Coloured Map

Report (accompanied by a massive map) by the Minister of State for Defence on the military occupation of the German New Guinea possessions, published by the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1922.

Contains a report examining the position in the Pacific at the commencement of WWI, and the dispatch of the Australian Naval and Military Expedition Force. The report examines, the movement and nature of both the German and Australian fleets around New Guinea, from the outbreak of war on 4th August, 1914. The report includes a description of the territory, the northwest Pacific Expedition, laws in force in the territory and the administration of justice, administration of native affairs, a brief examination of tropical medicine, territory revenues and tropical agriculture including currency and coinage, costs of administration and policy in regard to German nationals.

Nicely bound, by a later collector with gilt title to front spine.

The map, with dimensions of about 150x150cm (see accompanying photograph) is in colour and comprising the New Guinea mainland, New Britain and surrounding islands and the tip of Cape York. Very detailed. It represents the pre-war position and although undated likely comes from circa 1910. It is an exceptional map of the period the value of which more than underpins this item

$190.00

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The Retospect: Or, Review of Providential Mercies: With Anecdotes of Various Characters, and an Address to Naval Officers – Aliquis (Richard Marks)

Mendel’s Principles of Heredity – W Bateson

S Petri Basilica – Giovanni Faldo – c1670

Report on British New Guinea, from data and notes by the late Sir peter scratchley, Her Majesty’s special commissioner – 1886

Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics Census Bulletin No. 8 – Territory of New Guinea – 4th April 1921

Report on the military occupation of the German New Guinea possession – 1922 – With Very Large Coloured Map

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