Non-fiction

Les Volcans et les Tremblements de Terre – Arnold Boscowitz – First Edition 1866

First edition published by Paul Ducrocq, Paris in 1866.

Royal octavo (266mm x 175mm), 602 pages with 16 striking lithographs by Eugene Ciceri, toned with fiery highlights, and a further 40 wood engravings in the text. Publishers original red morocco backed pebble grain cloth covered boards with bevelled design. Spin gilt in compartments, raised bands, all page edges richly gilt, textured end papers. Some obvious marks to boards and closed crack on spine some patchy internal foxing, overall a good copy of a desirable book. Heavy book (1.6kg), may require an overseas postage supplement.

Volcanologist / seismologist Boscovitz produced what is an important 19th Century survey of volcanoes and earthquakes. The impressive vies include … Vesuvius, Orizaba, Mount Etna, Cotopaxi, Kilauea Fire Lake, Stromboli, Popocatepetl, El Jorullo, geysers in Iceland, Hot Springs in New Zealand etc.

Mid 19thC Volcano and Earthquake Classic with Striking Images.

$240.00

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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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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.

$90.00

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Civil War Maps – A Graphic Index to the Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.

The very first Occasional Paper issued by The Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography, published 1987.

Quarto, softcover, 68 pages with 55 full page maps following a useful introduction, by David Bosse, and followed by a list of the scales of the maps published. Original maps by the American Map Company Inc. A very good if not fine copy.

The principal atlas is a monumental piece of work with 1,006 maps and plans, 966 relating to military operations. It is on the whole presented in chronological order an, it is known that readers have found it difficult to research. This Graphic Index was compiled to alleviate these difficulties .. it took six year to complete in itself.

Seems a hard to find item maybe because of its curiosity or that it was the first of a series of high quality cartographic papers.

The Maps of the American Civil War Explained – Graphically

$50.00

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Cromwell – English Civil War – Sarcastic Notices of the Long Parliament – Editor J.C. Hotten [1863 re 1660]

Title continues … A List of the Members that Held Places, both Civil and Military … with the Sums of Money and Lands which they Divided among Themselves.

A Victorian facsimile, published 1863, of a nigh impossible to get 17th Century account.

A first of type. Bound in original salmon cloth covered boards, very clean copy internally, a small dint to the board front edge and sun effect to lower rear board … despite that a very good copy. Very clean internally printed on top class paper for the esteemed Chiswick Press.

Small quarto, 49 pages plus adverts of interest regarding other classic references.

The original accounts were titled “Mystery of the Good Old Cause’ of 1660, a satire on the Long Parliamentarians ‘self denying’ act, essentially a biographical catalogue of Parliamentarian collaborators. The Editor remarks … “Only a very few copies of the present work have been reprinted”.

Having carried out research at Voyager, we cannot sensibly estimate the print run, but can say that few copies exist anywhere. We are also intrigued by the family names that seem to have benefited from the goings on … many still seem to be at the top of the money pile today.

For those not informed the Long Parliament was … well long … 1640-1660. It followed the Short Parliament, which last three weeks in the aforesaid 1640. That in turn followed 11 years without a Parliament, Changing times.

The reality of English 17th Century – Greed but with Control … super record of goings on among the well healed of the day

$190.00

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Les Volcans et les Tremblements de Terre – Arnold Boscowitz – First Edition 1866

Last Voyage – Ann Davison – First edition 1951

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

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

Civil War Maps – A Graphic Index to the Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.

Cromwell – English Civil War – Sarcastic Notices of the Long Parliament – Editor J.C. Hotten [1863 re 1660]

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