Products | Voyager Rare Books Maps & Prints

Lake Victoria to Khartoum with Rifle and Camera – Captain F.A. Dickinson [Introduction by Winston Churchill] – First Edition 1910.

A rare book and one of the rarest books in the Churchill cannon. If you have a first edition of Churchill’s “My African Journey” then you are lucky and you will appreciate that this book by the guide of that event would make the perfect companion.

Published by John Lane (Bodley Head), London, 1910.. in the days when you spoke to John Lane. Thick octavo, 334 pages after preliminaries and before publishers catalogue. Well over a hundred illustrations from photographs [not included in the pagination]. Bound in unusual orange/ red cloth covered boards, gilt titles and embellishment, decorative lines. The covers are quite well faded especially to the spine and the odd mark, this is common for this binding. Otherwise internally very clean indeed, just a couple of light spots on the title.

Churchill in his introduction lavishes praise on Ricketts as a guide and organiser. The party walked/ travelled the whole Uganda and more, some 1,500 miles. Churchill did some of it on bicycle. A lot of bagging went on along the way – all very jolly. Churchill took them to Khartoum and enlivened the conversation with his first hand account of encounters during his various African military skirmishes.

Churchill in Africa – mutual admiration – Ricketts

$390.00

Updating cart…

First Class Polo – Tactics & Match Play – Brigadier-General R. L. Ricketts.

For those that have always wanted to understand polo beyond the general idea of horses, a mallet and a bamboo ball (well plastic now) this is the book. Get ahead become an expert and make the right calls at these posh events.

A fine copy of a super scarce book outlining the secrets of good polo play. Second edition, effectively self-published through Gale & Polden of Aldershot [British Military town] and London et, 1938.

Octavo, 48 pages and IX full pages plates of tactics guaranteed to win the play.

Ricketts played for the Alwar team in India circa 1900 and they won trophy after trophy – see the image of the frontispiece. They won the Indian Polo association Championship for several years and the Delhi Durbar without a single defeat scoring 117 goals against only 15.

Ricketts describes the “merciless hitting of the ordinary easy ball by the Maharajah, and the advantages of the golf drive trajectory which he imparted to it etc”.

Rickett’s motivation for the book is the fact that the Americans had more recently dominated the sport and to win back the advantage a quicker harder form of polo must be played. Bit like Bazball if you get that ..

Ricketts on Polo everything you need to know to beat the Yankees

$90.00

Updating cart…

The Antarctic Diary of Victor Campbell – “The Wicked Mate” – Edited King

Victor Campbell was part of Robert Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition. He led the Northern Party, six men who explored the coast of King Edward VII Land. They spent ten months at Cape Adare and then moved to Inexpressible Island, described as a stormy and desolate place (an understatement). They were marooned here over the winter and had to hole up in a man made ice cave. When the weather eased a little in October they made there way back over 230 miles of sea ice.

Campbell’s papers and diary were acquired by the University of Newfoundland. This made their publication for the first time possible. Edited by King who was librarian and the Scott Polar Institute, illustrated with Campbell’s sketches and numerous photographs, many of which not published before.

Published by the brilliant Erskine Press, part of Bluntisham Books in 2001. Large squarish format octavo, 192 pages, very good near fine condition.

Victor Campbell’s Antarctic Diaries – The Northern Party

$80.00

Updating cart…

Major Mitchell’s Map -1834 [Exploration and Surveying New South Wales] – Alan Andrews

A quality production by Blubber Press, Hobart published in 1992. Octavo, 402 pages, illustrated throughout, end paper maps. A fine copy as if new.

Mitchell and his team spent seven year surveying the often difficult terrain of New South Wales to produce of the greatest maps ever produced .. this is the magnificent story of that accomplishment

Mitchell’s Great Achievement

$50.00

Updating cart…

Proud Intrepid Heart – Leichhardt’s First Attempt to the Swan River 1846-1847 – Dan Sprod – Signed, Limited Numbered Edition

Published by Blubber Press, Hobart in 1989. Quarto, 334 pages, well illustrated and printed on quality paper (Teton Warm White) by Griffin Press. A very good if not fine copy. Limited signed edition number 169 of 600.

This is Liechhardt’s second expedition after the successful mammoth exploration from the Darling Downs to Port Essington. This, an even more adventurous plan, was a failure and later members of his team were to write negatively about Leichhardt’s leadership.

This book contains his journals, published for the first time and presented so well by Dan Sprod. Drawing also on other unpublished accounts he attempts to set the record straight.

Leichhardt’s second … the real story … put so well

$60.00

Updating cart…

Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries – Edited by Fred and Eleanor Jacka

The 2008, soft cover version, published by Allen & Unwin, Sydney. Small quarto, 414 pages and 60 pages of plates. Very good condition. A substantial and heavy book not really suitable for overseas postage.

Sir Douglas Mawson made four trips to the Antarctic, the first in 1907-09 with Shackleton’s expedition, then in 1911-14 as leader of the Australian Antarctic Expedition and then twice between 1929 and 1931 as leader of the combined expeditions.

This book brings together for the first time his writings over all four expeditions.

It also includes some Frank Hurley photographic images not produced elsewhere.

Mawson’s Words perfectly presented

$40.00

Updating cart…

All products

Lake Victoria to Khartoum with Rifle and Camera – Captain F.A. Dickinson [Introduction by Winston Churchill] – First Edition 1910.

First Class Polo – Tactics & Match Play – Brigadier-General R. L. Ricketts.

The Antarctic Diary of Victor Campbell – “The Wicked Mate” – Edited King

Major Mitchell’s Map -1834 [Exploration and Surveying New South Wales] – Alan Andrews

Proud Intrepid Heart – Leichhardt’s First Attempt to the Swan River 1846-1847 – Dan Sprod – Signed, Limited Numbered Edition

Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries – Edited by Fred and Eleanor Jacka

Product Categories