Shipwrecks

Mercator’s World – First Six Editions – 1996

The very first group from Vol 1 No 1 to Vol1 No 6 published in 1996 published bimonthly by Astor Publishing by Edward Astor at Astor Publishing. Very good condition.

With an Editorial and Advisory Board to die for including, Robert Clancy, David Woodward and Peter Van Der Kroot.

Each edition approximately 100 pages, heavily illustrated mostly in colour. Content extremely well researched and presented.

By example, the first edition includes … Mythical Seas; Carto controversy; the mapmaker as artist; the Line that Divided the World; the Captain Cook Legacy; the Brilliant Irascible Ferdinand Hassler … and in the second … Cartographic Thievery; Carto philately (love it); Charting Shipwrecks Down Under [New South wales]; the Island of California. Obviously much more.

Mercator’s World – the important first group of six.

$90.00

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Heroes of the Polar Seas – J. Kennedy Maclean – 1910

Title continues … A Record of Exploration in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas by J Kennedy Maclean. Published by Chambers Edinburgh, thick octavo, 404 pages. Magnificent pictorial boards, well illustrated with two maps of the top and the bottom. Some spotting and spine ends a bit pulled, otherwise a pretty good copy.

The pictorial boards may give the impression this was for a younger audience. The quality of the content and writing suggest the market was father and son.

Written chronologically with an introduction of “Gains and losses of Polar Enterprise” before the “Pioneers”. The search for the North-west passage and Franklin and much about his horrors. Nares and then the fatal “Jannette” an incredible story often lost in these accounts. The discovery of Franz Josef Land and the North-east Passage by Nordenskiold. Peary and the success of the North Pole after twenty years … and Cook.

In the South, Scotland’s share of the then exploration and Scott’s Discovery Expedition. Shackleton’s Farthest South (so close) and the great race for the Pole.

At the time of publication the race to the pole had just been won and the tragedy of Scott’s expedition known but not fully understood. Tributes had begun to flow.

A Voyager favourite … an obscure but relevant Polar item.

$90.00

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Wrecks & Reputations [The Loss of the Schomberg and Loch Ard] – Don Charlwood

Published by Angus & Robertson in 1977. A very good copy, 190 pages with fine dust jacket.

Don Charwood’s well researched tightly composed and nicely illustrated account of the difficulties of early vessels sailing through the Western entrance of the Bass Strait.

Particular reference to the fate of the Schomberg and the Loch Ard and to its only survivors Eva Carmichael and the young man that saved her Tom Pearce.

The fate of many other ships of the “Loch” brand are listed – leads one to conclude never to sail in a vessel named Loch anything!

What out for the rocks!

$25.00

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The Penance Way – The Mystery of Puffin’s Atlantic Voyage – Merton Naydler

Published by Hutchinson, London a first edition 1968.

Octavo, 252 pages with end paper charts, photographic illustrations and diagrams. Nicely put together and a very good copy.

David Johnstone and John Hore lost their lives mid-Atlantic in 1966. The fifteen-foot Puffin was found upturned. Extraordinarily, Johnstone had left behind a 35,000-word journal … upon which this book is primarily written.

Courage and tenacity documented to the very end.

$25.00

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Capsize! – A Story of Survival in the North Atlantic – Nicolas Angel

A first English edition published by Norton, New York and London in 1980. Published the prior year in French.

Octavo, 176 pages nicely illustrated from photographs with charts etc.

The trimaran RTL-Timex capsized in a storm sailing from Bermuda to New York. The crew, under skipper Alan Gilksman, made the raft and a frantic nine days of gales and high seas ensued. Several ships missed them before they were finally recovered … just in time for some crew members who almost perished.

Frightening North Atlantic Experience .. impossible to put down

$25.00

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Wake of the Invercauld – Madelene Ferguson Allen

First edition 1997, published by Exisle Publishers, Auckland, New Zealand. Large octavo, 256 pages well illustrated with images and maps. Very good if not as new condition. A super book.

In 1864 the Invercauld was shipwrecked on the remote Auckland Islands in the sub-Antarctic Ocean south of New Zealand. The author Madelene Ferguson Allen is the great-granddaughter of one of only three who ultimately survived the shipwreck or the subsequent hash conditions on the island.

More than a shipwreck book Allen draws on original manuscripts, details the early year of Robert Holding and his time in Australia, refers to the First Mate’s Narrative (kindly gifted) … her two visits to the Auckland Islands produced some lovely photographic images and extended the historical content … now carefully controlled as a genuinely untouched wildlife sanctuary the book brings the cold island group to life

Special book about a tragic event and a special island

$50.00

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Mercator’s World – First Six Editions – 1996

Heroes of the Polar Seas – J. Kennedy Maclean – 1910

Wrecks & Reputations [The Loss of the Schomberg and Loch Ard] – Don Charlwood

The Penance Way – The Mystery of Puffin’s Atlantic Voyage – Merton Naydler

Capsize! – A Story of Survival in the North Atlantic – Nicolas Angel

Wake of the Invercauld – Madelene Ferguson Allen

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