Australian Coastal Exploration and Maritime

Geographical Memoir of Melville Island and Port Essington on the Coburg Peninsula Northern Australia; Observations on the Settlements Established on the North Coast of New Holland, in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, London 1834

Published by John Murray, London on behalf of the Society. This is Volume the Fourth 1834 – Part II. Octavo, pages 129-422 plus index and Contents page repeated at rear with four folding maps and two plates at rear. Original card wrapper, chipped to front edge (re-enforced with archival japan paper) otherwise a very good copy in original state

The report on Australia is by Major Campbell, 57 Foot, formerly Commandant of Melville Island. The report comprises pages 129-182 and is regarded as a very early fundamental report on the region. The accompanying map is a sizeable (44cm long) fold out with original hand colouring. The related map is partly discoloured.

Of further interest … extracts from a Spanish Manuscript regarding expeditions between 1749 and 1776 with the view to establishing a Colony on Juan Fernandez. Interestingly, just after Lord Anson’s visit.

Observations regarding the inhabitants of the Southern Coast of Arabia and the route through the desert from Kosir to Kench.

Further reports on the Journal of Captain Robinson on HMS Favourite around Newfoundland. Bartholomew on HMS Leven on the Coast of west Africa. Schoolcraft and the expedition through the Upper Mississippi to Itasca Lake with a nice map at rear. Grenville Temple’s Travels in Tunis. A paper on the Migration of Polynesians by Australian John Dunmore Lang, one of the earliest attempts at the subject. Three Years in Abyssinia by Samuel Gobart. Travels in central Asia by Connolly and Burnes. Miscellaneous items on British Guiana, Chilli, South Africa, the Euphrates and the Nubian desert.

Other than the Melville Island/Port Essington Map and that of the Mississippi explorations we have useful maps of Part of British Guyana and the Central Asian routes of Connolly and Burnes. The two plates are very browned and aged.

Unusual to have Campbell’s report still bound in its original wrappers with the other reports of interest and, of course, the map.

Early RGS Journal and early Northern territory Report – with some interesting extra’s and map.

$290.00

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Force Nine and More – High Winds, Wild Seas – Stories of Australians Who Fought Them and Survived – Kenneth Slack and Others

First edition published by Murray, Sydney and Melbourne in 1969.

Large octavo, 168 pages, heavily illustrated with images from photographs, charts etc. Very good condition.

A compilation of 18 separate, often heroic voyages involving Australians often in Australian waters …. Bass Strait seeking harbour at Stanley; difficulties in the Pacific but making Norfolk Island; with Bill Tilman (Voyager Hero) and the cold dangerous waters around Heard Island; around the Horn, a Tasmanian Nightmare and the rest … impossible to put down.

Australians surviving the most difficult sailing challenges

$30.00

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Chance Discovery of Australia and New Zealand by Portuguese and Spanish Navigators between 1531 and 1528 – Roger Herve translated John Dunmore

A scarce 70 page softcover translation of Roger Herve’s interesting research translated by John Dunmore.

Published privately in New Zealand in 1983. Contains three maps in the text. Some fox marks to page edges and half title still a very good copy of quite a valuable little work.

Contents arranged as follows … The Portuguese-Norman Portulan Maps; Analysis of the Dieppe Planispheres; The First European Voyages of Exploration to Australasia; The Evidence of the Voyage Avantureux and the Conclusion .. The Presumed Course of the Caravel San Lesmes in 1526-1527.

Postage may well be reduced on this item on billing.

Dunmore’s important translation of Roger Herve’s work – pretty conclusive

$35.00

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A Journal of the Endeavour Voyager – James Magra

This is a fine facsimile published by Israel Amsterdam in 1967. Note titles “Cook” by Israel but not the author.

The original account … A Journal of a Voyage Round the World in His Majesty’s Ship Endeavour, in the Years 1768,1769,1770 and 1771 etc published by Becket and Hondt in the Strand in 1791. Quarto, 130 pages plus 3 pages of vocabulary of the language of Otahitee.

Published two years before the official Hawkesworth account in 1793 and now generally attributed to James Magra.

James Magra was a New Yorker and American sympathiser and accordingly to James Cook a man of dubious quality. Almost impossible to find in original form … this was the first published book describing the East Coast of Australia and includes for example reference to Stingray Bay the name given to Botany Bay by James Cook before the latter was adopted sometime before Hawkesworth.

Magra’s account and essential Cook ingredient

$80.00

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First Fleet Journal – An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales etc – David Collins – First Edition 1798

Full title … An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, with Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners etc of the Native Inhabitants of That Country, to which is Added some Particulars of New Zealand from the MSS of Lieutenant Governor King

A first edition published by T. Cadell Jnr and W Davies, The Strand, London 1798.

Quarto, bound in half calf over marbled boards. Gilt title on separate red leather title label, gilt decorations to compartments between five raised bands. 680 pages complete including list of plates at rear which someone has ticked off. Frontispiece chart, 18 copper engraved full page plates (magnificent), a further 4 engraved illustrations within the text and a large folding chart. Very little wear and a very good copy aside from some foxing on pages close to the engravings.

This account is the last published of the First Fleet Journals. In its content and style it represents the earliest history of Australia as an English Colonial settlement … the others being more personal narratives. This is the first edition published 1798 as a single volume with the fine engravings taken from water colours by Edward Dayes who in turn took them from drawings by convict artist Thomas Watling. A second volume or was later published in 1802 with an update on the intervening period. This second volume is extremely scarce.

David Collins was Secretary to First Governor Arthur Phillip. At an early age he had joined the Marines and had seen action in the American War of Independence. In 1786 he volunteered for the First Fleet as Deputy Judge Advocate in the Marines. After two years instructions were received that the Marines were to return to England. Collins decided to remain at some personal cost. On Phillip’s departure in 1792 he stayed and helped hold the fort until Hunter arrived in 1795. Collins left the next year and two years later this account was published. From his central role he was in the perfect position to chronicle the events at the Colony as they unfolded.

Goings on at Norfolk Island are included and the engraving of the township Sydney on Norfolk Island is particularly well done.

The frontispiece chart comprises the Three Harbours of Botany Bay, Port Jackson and Broken Bay and the cultivated grounds in and around the different settlements, with the Course of the Rivers Hawkesbury and Nepean, and the situation of the wild cattle to the westward.

The fine full page views include … the Governor’s House at Rose Hill; by Water to Paramatta with a distant view of the Western Mountains; Eastern view of Sydney; Western View of Sydney Cove; Direct South View of Sydney; South East View of Sydney including the Church; North View of Sydney Cove; The Brick Field, or High Road to Parramatta; View of Sydney in Norfolk Island;

There is also an unusual folding chart of New Zealand drawn by Too-gee.

Of further interest is Collin’s sympathetic comments regarding the aboriginal people and his lengthy Appendix is a special work in itself … he covers their Government and Religion; Stature and Appearance; Habitations; Mode of Living; Courtship and Marriage; Customs and Manners; Superstitions; Diseases; Property; Dispositions; Funeral Ceremonies and Language. The nine full size engraved plates, detailing the initiation of young men and the custom of the removal of a front tooth, are extra special and represent the very first ethnographically accurate portrayal of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the Sydney region.

Collins First Fleet Journal – First Edition 1798

$2,390.00

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Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas in His Majesty’s Ship, the Endeavour – Sydney Parkinson

Fine facsimile edition published by the Libraries Board of South Australia, Adelaide 1972.

Scottish born Sydney Parkinson (1745-1771) was a superb natural history illustrator selected by Banks for the Endeavour voyage.

Originally published in 1783 after the completion of Cook’s first great voyage. Edited by his brother, Stanfield Parkinson, following the death of Sydney Parkinson at Cape Town on his return having contracted dysentery in Java.

Full title … “ A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, in His Majesty’s Ship, The Endeavour. Faithfully transcribed from Papers of the late Sydney Parkinson, Draughtsman to Joseph Banks, Esq on his late Expedition with Dr Solander, round the World. Embellished with Views and Designs, delineated by the Auotor, and engraved by capital Artists”

Large quarto,(34cm x 29cm), 214 pages after preliminaries, Frontispiece and numerous charts, maps and illustrations. Original red cloth covered binding, nice clean condition. Parkinson’s drawings of plants gave rise to the production of the great “Florilegium” perhaps the greatest botanical work of all time. A record of Parkinson’s observations and imagery from Terra del Fuego, Tahiti, New Zealand, New Holland and up into the East Indies.

Parkinson’s account a quality facsimile of a fundamental voyage account.

$140.00

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Geographical Memoir of Melville Island and Port Essington on the Coburg Peninsula Northern Australia; Observations on the Settlements Established on the North Coast of New Holland, in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, London 1834

Force Nine and More – High Winds, Wild Seas – Stories of Australians Who Fought Them and Survived – Kenneth Slack and Others

Chance Discovery of Australia and New Zealand by Portuguese and Spanish Navigators between 1531 and 1528 – Roger Herve translated John Dunmore

A Journal of the Endeavour Voyager – James Magra

First Fleet Journal – An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales etc – David Collins – First Edition 1798

Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas in His Majesty’s Ship, the Endeavour – Sydney Parkinson

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