Products | Voyager Rare Books Maps & Prints

117 Days Adrift (In the Pacific) – Maurice & Maralyn Bailey – First Australian Edition 1974

Published by The Australasian Publishing Co, Hornsby a first edition 1974. Large octavo, 192 pages with endpaper maps, further charts and numerous excellent illustrations

This story is up there with Apollo 13.

Maurice and Maralyn Bailey give up their lives as a clerk and a tax officer in the South of England sell their house to live life at sea. They had the Auralyn built to meet their own needs and finally sailed for New Zealand in June 1972.

The made the Atlantic and through the Panama without notable incident. However North East of the Galapagos it all went wrong when they were hit by a whale and the boat began to sink. All attempts to save her were in vain and they had to abandon the Auralyn for their inflatable raft and dinghy. Meagre supplies were recovered.

Along the way we have storms, capsizing, numerous sightings of ship that did not see them … the first on day 8! They captured fresh water but not without difficulty and caught fish and turtles for food. Eventually rescued by a Korean fishing vessel “Weolmi 306” drifting further north having already crossed the main shipping route.

Their remarkable story and their survival among the marine life of Pacific area known as the “Tropical convergence” warranted foreword by Sir peter Scott

Incredible story of survival in the Pacific

$30.00

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Come Aboard – Eric Hiscock – First Edition 1978

Published by Oxford University Press a first edition 1978. Octavo, 237 pages with 43 coloured photographs by the Hiscock’s and seven charts. Very good near fine condition.

In 1976, Eric Hiscock and his wife set off on their third circumnavigation of the world.

They traveled west from New Zealand in the jib-headed ketch Wanderer IV via the Durban to England, the Canaries and a stop off in the West Indies before through the Panama and across the Pacific taking in the Marquesas, Tahiti and Fiji.

Nicely illustrated and with good technical dialogue.

Fine sailing third time all the way

$30.00

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The Happy Island – Bengt Danielsson – First UK Edition 1952

A scarce book, the first UK edition published by George Allen & Unwin, London 1952 .. we also have the first US Edition. Octavo, 256 pages nicely illustrated with the authors photographs. Good to better condition with a chip lower dust jacket.

The author was part of the Kon-Tiki expedition. They were shipwrecked at Raroia which is a coral atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago, to the east of Tahiti.

Danielsson and his wife returned there and spent a year and a half enjoying the relaxed lifestyle. A very funny account but there is tragedy in the death of a key character and the inevitable cyclone.

Perspective .. in 2012 the population of Raroia was 233, there is nowhere to stay so visitors are always invited to stay in the homes of maybe the friendliest people on earth!

Unusual Pacific account

$30.00

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The Last of Lysandra – Elizabeth Fenwick

A very good Gollancz, yellow jacket thriller. A first of type published 1973. Octavo, 160 pages in very good condition or better.

More strange characters than “Midsummer Murders” … we are promised a hidden menace lurking behind respectable facades … and we get it.

Who is lurking behind your façade?

$25.00

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The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway – 1956 Edition

Published by Jonathan Cape, London a quite early edition 1956, noting the Nobel Prize win on the front jacket flap.

Slim octavo, 127 wonderful pages. A very good copy.

Should be everyone’s favourite short read. Nobel citation – “his powerful style-forming mastery of the art of modern narration, as most lately revealed in his novel The Old Man and the Sea”.

Nobel Classic by Hemingway.

$60.00

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The Parasites – Daphne du Maurier

Published by Victor Gollancz, London 1983 … the first printing of the second issue in the more modern Gollancz jacket. Octavo, 350 pages in very good condition.

Daphne du Maurier’s somewhat exotic scandalous story of the Delaney family and they were parasitic. Draws on her own life.

Vies with Rebecca as her best

$35.00

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All products

117 Days Adrift (In the Pacific) – Maurice & Maralyn Bailey – First Australian Edition 1974

Come Aboard – Eric Hiscock – First Edition 1978

The Happy Island – Bengt Danielsson – First UK Edition 1952

The Last of Lysandra – Elizabeth Fenwick

The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway – 1956 Edition

The Parasites – Daphne du Maurier

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