Maritime

Last Voyage – Ann Davison – First edition 1951

First edition of Ann Davison’s autobiographical account which ends in the most dramatic shipwreck and the loss of her husband.

An incredible individual, after all of this, she became the first woman to single-handedly sail across the Atlantic.

Published by Peter Davis, London, 1951. Octavo, 248 pages, two photographs of Ann and Frank … it was not that sort of adventure. Very good condition.

The Last Voyage begins with her earlier life as an aviator in the 1930’s delivering mail around the UK. She married Frank Davison a fellow aviator when they both worked at the Hooten airfield near Liverpool. They has a long held ambition for sailing and bought a run-down 70 foot ketch “Reliance”. Doing it up sent them broke and before the work was finished they sailed to avoid their creditors. They encountered incredible storms in the Channel and the Irish Sea … they foundered on the Portland Bill. Taking to their cork life raft they battled to survive and Frank died out of pure exhaustion ..

Now scarce and one of the most personal accounts we have read.

$35.00

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The Cruise of the Dream Ship – Ralph Stock (1950 Edition in Complete Dust Jacket)

First published 1921, this is the 1950 edition same publisher, Heinemann, London.

Octavo, 265 pages, numerous from period photographs. Super dust jacket for seventy years old, a few spots to top edge and a little aged in the ends, internally very clean and bright, rates as a very good copy.

The Dream Ship was originally designed as a lifeboat for the North Sea fishing fleet. Forty-seven feet with a fifteen foot beam and eight foot draught … to start there was no money to buy here … but these obstacles are often overcome. Purchased, converted and fitted out we are off to the Pacific … first down to Vigo, the Canaries and over to the West Indies and Barbados. Through the Panama and to the Galapagos and then the Marquesas and the Paumoto Islands, Tahiti (its pleasures and problems). Moorea, Palmertson (almost a Hurricane), Savage, Friendly and on to Thursday Island … Finally some advice to “Dreamers of Dream Ships”

Sailing fantasy fulfilled on the Dream Ship

$35.00

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Moana – The Vastness of the Sea – Bernard Gorsky – First English edition 1956

A very nice copy of the first English edition published in 1956.

Translated from the original French by Alec Brown an published by Elek Books, London. Interestingly, still published a year before the French equivalent.

Octavo, 239 pages with endpaper maps and numerous illustrations taken from photographs of the voyage, many underwater. Very goo condition, tres clean inside.

Bernard Gorsky was inspired on reading a sailing adventure. He assembled a crew of three and bought a forty-foot cutter. They set sail from Dinard and the book follows their travels to Tangiers, the Canaries and across the Atlantic to the West Indies with some beautiful sailing and diving. Through the Panama with time in the Galapagos among the turtles and further west to the Atolls of Tuamotu and Tahiti.

The writing is special and has been compared, rather curiously, with Melville and Conrad .. well it is a delight

Moana – a superior sailing and diving adventure

$30.00

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A Voyage Around the World (1785-1788) – Captain George Dixon

One of the harder to find facsimile published Israel, Amsterdam; this one in 1968.

Full original title … “A Voyage Round the World; but more particularly to the North-West Coast of America; performed in 1785, 1786, 1787, and 1788, in The King George and Queen Charlotte, Captains Portlock and Dixon. Dedicated, by permission, to Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. By Captain George Dixon.

Originally published by Geo. Goulding, Haydn’s Head, No ^, James Street, Covent Garden, 1789.

This form thick quarto, xxix (Introduction and Content, 360 pages, plus additional appendices 47 pages. Enormous folding chart of the Pacific as frontispiece. A further 21 plates of charts, maps and natural history exhibits, many folding. Very good condition. Heavy (1.3kgs), will require an overseas postage supplement.

Dixon has served under Cook on the Third Voyage on the Resolution. During that voyage he became aware of the commercial opportunities on the American North-West Coast. Dixon promoted a venture to exploit the fur trade in that region. He became partner in the King George’s Sound Company and an expedition was mounted with Dixon Captain of the Queen Charlotte and Portlock Captain of the larger King George. In the summers of 1786 and 1787 they explored the coastline of British Colombia and Alaska, spending the winter in Hawaiian Islands … they were the first to visit Moloka. Back in the North-West a good cargo of furs was collected, and the party sailed to China where they were traded … returning to England. During their exploits they were the first to understand that Haida Gwaii were islands and not part of the mainland; they explored Queen Charlotte Sound, Yakutat Bay, Sita Bay and the Dixon Entrance … they named the are where they took many fur cloaks .. Cloak Bay.

Dixon one of the less promoted Cook prodigies … with a commercial venture that went around the world and filled in the North-West Pacific.

$120.00

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A Journal of Magellan’s Voyage – First Around the World – George Sanderlin

A first edition and published by Hamish Hamilton, London in 1966.

Octavo, xxvi pages of preliminaries, Introduction etc, 188 pages with 12 super illustrations, sometimes double page including, charts and images of early globes. Pictorial boards matching the dust jacket design. All very good condition.

Author George Sanderlin brings the Magellan voyage to life. A fair bit is derived from the first hand account of Antonio Pigfetta, a young nobleman who accompanied Magellan. Enhanced by select excerpts from contemporary logbooks, letters, memoirs etc. Maintaining a first person form throughout makes it a very readable and enjoyable work.

At the rear a timetable of events which starts four years before the voyage highlighting the undercurrent of politics and subplots that surround Magellan’s contract with King Charles I of Spain to conduct the venture.

The First ever Round the World – what an adventure … only if Magellan had made it!

$35.00

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Printed Charts of Scandinavia – Map Collectors’ Circle – R.V. Tooley

The Map Collectors’ Circle publication published Nos 70 and 71 by R.V. Tooley in 1971. Very good condition with T.M. Perry, Australian map expert’s stamp to each.

Excellent work by the master Tooley in No 70 we have Part I comprising catalogue details of 297 maps and charts of northern delights on 28 pages plus 16 pages of rare map illustrations. Completing the exercise in No 71 – Part II Tooley expands the catalogue to 759 items, over another 32 pages, and adds another 10 pages of illustrations of map examples.

Rare Northern Cold Climate Maps catalogued by Tooley.

$40.00

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Last Voyage – Ann Davison – First edition 1951

The Cruise of the Dream Ship – Ralph Stock (1950 Edition in Complete Dust Jacket)

Moana – The Vastness of the Sea – Bernard Gorsky – First English edition 1956

A Voyage Around the World (1785-1788) – Captain George Dixon

A Journal of Magellan’s Voyage – First Around the World – George Sanderlin

Printed Charts of Scandinavia – Map Collectors’ Circle – R.V. Tooley

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