Travel & Voyages

A Voyage to New Guinea, and the Moluccas from Balambangan: including and Account of Magindono, Sooloo and other Islands … performed in the Tartar Galley, during the years 1774,1775 and 1776 – Thomas Forrest -First Edition 1779

A rare first edition published by Robson, Donaldson et al London 1779. Quarto, 388 pages, and with 32 copper engraved maps and plates, many double page or folding. Offsetting to plates, as usual. A good copy in original full calf re-backed and re-cornered to style.

Scottish born Thomas Forrest (1729-1802) was a brilliant sailor and navigator. He was a midshipman by sixteen and soon spent most of his time in the “Indian waters”. He was commissioned by the British East India Company in 1762. By 1770 he was engaged in forming a new settlement, Balambangban, Borneo … an idea fostered by Alexander Dalrymple.

He was soon involved in plans to explore the islands to the east in the direction of New Guinea. He sailed on 9^th December 1774 in the Tartar a garay boat from Sulu of about ten tons. His crew comprised two English officers and eighteen Malays. He was accompanied part of the voyage by two even smaller boats. The expedition, the subject of this book pushed as far as Geelvink Bay, New Guinea having explored and charted the Sulu Archipelago, Mindanao, Mandiolo, Batchian and Waiego, returning to Achin in the March of 1776.

This volume with its sumptuous array of plates was produced to a very high standard. A well written account published quite speedily after the events reflects the support and standing offered the author Forrest.

Forrest went on to publish further works relating to navigation in the east such as “A Treatise on the Monsoons in East India”.

Forrest exploring and charting the eastern islands of the East Indies and Northern Coastline of New Guinea.

$1,280.00

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Sails Full and By – Dom Degnon

Published by Sheridan House, Dobbs Ferry a first edition 1995. Octavo, 244 pages illustrated. Very good near fine condition.

A seven-year circumnavigation in the 41 foot ketch “Taku”. A full crew of friends and family who come and go during the “voyage”.

With more time than some they have more time for the exotic .. and in the Pacific Ahe, Tahiti, Samoa, Sunwarrow, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand. Then off to the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea and then difficulties with the boat and they just made it to Australia’s Lizard island. And then more ….

A long time around the world an unusual narrative

$30.00

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The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido for the Suppression of Piracy with Extracts from the Journal of James Brooke, Esq of Sarawak – Captain Henry Keppel – Two Volumes -1847

A third edition set of this Borneo classic published by Chapman and Hall, London in 1847 the year after the first. Preferred for the additional details particularly the new chapter on recent intelligence by Walter Kelly.

It is the second half of the title that explains the importance of these volumes. Brooke had suggested the first part as the principal title maybe to underplay his hand.

James Brooke (1803-1868) was an extraordinary individual born into a colonial family and generally describe as soldier and adventurer. He was given the Raj of Sarawak in Borneo, by the Sultan of Brunei, as a reward for quelling an uprising and driving pirates from the region. He ruled with an iron fist from 1842-1868. There is much more to his story than can be written here … he knew Alfred Russell Wallace and influenced his decision to conduct extensive natural history researches in the region culminating in the evolutionary evidence giving rise to the naming of the “Wallace Line”.

James Brooke is behind the character in Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim” and the “White Rajah” of Nicholas Monsarrat. Charles Kingsley dedicated “Westward Ho” to the man and Errol Flynn planned to star as Brooke in a film written by himself although it was never made.

The author of this work, Captain Henry Keppel had sailed the Dido to Borneo in 1843. His crew became heavily involved in resisting attacks by Lanoon pirates.

Two royal octavo, volumes, 429 and 315 pages after preliminaries. Bound in morocco with separate title and volume labels gilt on black leather, raised bands etc. Nicely illustrated with 11 tinted lithographic plates, 6 folding maps and a chart. A little pale foxing otherwise very good copies of this interesting account. Carries the bookplate of Walter Jeffrey, early writer of maritime novels and historical accounts.

The Dido in and Around Borneo and the Journals of Adventure and first Sultan of Sarawak – James Brooke

$590.00

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Francois Peron’s Natural History of Maria Island Tasmania. – Brian Plomley and Others

Another Plomley rarity we don’t expect to see again for a long time.

Published as part of the Records of the Queen Victoria Museum in 1990.

Soft cover, 50 pages, with charts etc all in fine condition.

Baudin spent three days circumnavigation Maria Island in February 1802. Francois Peron was zoologist but also made meteorological, geomorphic, botanical observation – a multi faceted scientist was Peron.

Peron knew his stuff when it came to Maria.

$30.00

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The General (Bruny d’Entrecasteaux) – The Visits of the Expedition led by Bruny d’Entrecasteaux to Tasmanian Waters in 1792 and 1793 – Brian Plomley and Piard- Bernier.

Another special book by Brian Plomley with the help of Josiane Pirad- Bernier. Now very scarce.

Large wide octavo, 378 pages, illustrated. Published by the Launceston Museum in 1993. A solid quality production in near fine condition.

Very well researched and written book on the Bruny d’Entrecasteaux and his visits to Tasmania.

Covers the preparations for the voyage and the officers of the Recherche and Esperance, and among other things their scientific work [Natural History, Geological, Botanical and Zoological].

Also includes as appendices the journals of Louis Ventenat and the botanist Louis Dechamps.

Rare collectable D’Entrecasteaux – more than a channel.

$140.00

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The Long Labrador Trail – Dillon Wallace – First Edition 1907

A first edition published by The Outing Publishing Company, New York in 1907.

Octavo, 308 pages plus appendix of weather information daily. Nicely illustrated with 29 photographic images, coloured frontispiece and folding map at rear. The beautiful pictorial covers complete a very book. A very good copy.

In 1903, Dillon Wallace (1863-1939) accompanied Leonidas Hubbard on an exploratory trip through Labrador planning to follow the Naskaupi River to Lake Michikamau where no previous Europeans had been. They followed the wrong river and got into so much difficulty. Hubbard fell ill and died of starvation. Wallace survived and wrote his first book The Lure of the Labrador Wild published in 1905. In that book, he blamed Hubbard for the mistakes he made leading to his own death, which infuriated Hubbard’s wife

Wallace planned a much more adventurous expedition, which would become the subject of this book. Hubbard’s wife on hearing of the expedition planned her own, along the same lines. She also wrote a book “A Woman’s Way Through Unknown Labrador” … neither refer to each other!

Wallace in Labrador a second time with success and unmentioned competition.

$120.00

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A Voyage to New Guinea, and the Moluccas from Balambangan: including and Account of Magindono, Sooloo and other Islands … performed in the Tartar Galley, during the years 1774,1775 and 1776 – Thomas Forrest -First Edition 1779

Sails Full and By – Dom Degnon

The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido for the Suppression of Piracy with Extracts from the Journal of James Brooke, Esq of Sarawak – Captain Henry Keppel – Two Volumes -1847

Francois Peron’s Natural History of Maria Island Tasmania. – Brian Plomley and Others

The General (Bruny d’Entrecasteaux) – The Visits of the Expedition led by Bruny d’Entrecasteaux to Tasmanian Waters in 1792 and 1793 – Brian Plomley and Piard- Bernier.

The Long Labrador Trail – Dillon Wallace – First Edition 1907

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