Travel & Voyages

The Long Labrador Trail – Dillon Wallace – First Edition 1907

A first edition published by The Outing Publishing Company, New York. It was published simultaneously in Toronto. 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. Showing some age but still nice and clean inside and a pretty good copy.

Dillon Wallace (1863-1939) had legal training but loved the outdoors. In 1903, he accompanied Leonidas Hubbard on an exploratory trip through Labrador planning to follow the Naskaupi River to Lake Michikamau where no previous Europeans had trod. They followed the wrong river and got into so much difficulty that 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. This infuriated his wife.

Wallace planned a much more adventurous expedition still and that is the subject of this book. Hubbard’s wife on hearing of the expedition planned her own, along the same lines and beat Wallace to the final destination by some weeks. 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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From the Middle Temple to the South Seas – Alexander – First Edition 1927

A most unusual book, first edition published by Murray, London in 1927. Large octavo, 287 pages in pretty good condition just some ageing to page edges

The author Gilchrist Alexander was a Scottish Barrister who practiced out of the Middle Temple London. After 20 years of perhaps “not enough briefs” he accepted the role as the first Chief police Magistrate in Fiji.

The first chapter is about his conventional career. In Fiji activity takes on a more interesting shape with absconding defendants, piracy, blackbirding and headhunters. The narrative interspersed with observations mainly in Fiji but also the New Hebrides. Nicely illustrated with 25 photographic images.

Unusual account of a legal mind in Fiji

$40.00

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Early Observations of Marquesan Culture 1595-1813 – Edwin Ferdon

First published University of Arizona, 1993. Octavo, 184 pages in very good if not fine condition.

A scholarly work by Edwin Ferdon who as a young man was archaeologist on the Thor Heyerdahl 1955 expedition to Easter Island. The notes and bibliography make it extra useful for those that want to more broadly study the history of the Marquesas.

Ferdon was thorough

$40.00

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Captain Henry Byam Martin R.N. – Polynesian Journal

Published by the Peabody Museum in 1981, Octavo 192 pages beautifully illustrated. A very good copy in a complete dust jacket.

Captain Martin’s first command, H.M.S. Grampus with orders to sail for Hawaii to await further orders which were to sail for Tahiti the French planning to subjugate the island, which they did by “bloody force”.

The actual journal was in the bowels of the British Museum … it is characterised by in the moment observations and a sense of humour regarding the struggle between the French and the British and the oft hopeless position the islanders found themselves in.

The text of an important one time “lost” journal .

$40.00

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Sailor and Beachcomber – Safroni-Middleton – First Edition 1915

“Confessions of a Life at Sea, In Australia and amid the Islands of the Pacific”. Published by Grant Richards, London a first edition 1915.

Thick octavo, 304 pages private library stamp at front and rear of Thomas Kinmore of Cork, Ireland. Nicely illustrated with 23 images from photographs. Pretty good condition.

An unusual book starting with “I run away to sea” but finds himself stranded in Brisbane and then off to the bush before leaving for the South Sea Islands. The usual chapter on cannibalism with much time spent in Samoa and Fiji, then Tahiti (and the usual chapter on morals) and the Marquesan Queens and back to Samoa before returning to Australia. Lost in the bush and on to the Gold Fields and Coolgardie. References to the Bounty and of course R.L.S. And quite a bit of violin playing – see his biography below.

Written in an interesting somewhat casual style but packed with observation if not sometimes a bit puffed up.

The author George Arnold Haynes Safroni-Middleton (1873-1950), also known as Count Safroni, was a British Composer, violinist, harpist, writer and astronomer. Born in Kent he studied violin with Pablo de Sarasate and later played with the orchestra at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney. He toured Australia and explored Borneo, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia (and also obviously the Pacific). He composed “Imperial Echoes” in 1913 which for many years was the theme of “Radio Newsreel” on the BBC. Quite an odd chap.

In Australian and (mainly) in the Pacific – entertaining

$80.00

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Bounty / Pitcairn Item – Harper’s New Monthly Magazine – 1871

Bound as one volume Harper’s Magazine from December 1870 to May 1871. Small quarto, 952 pages bound in half black leather worn but strong, page edges speckled red.

The usual smorgasbord of 19th century articles. The star is a 15 page illustrated article on the Pitcairn Islanders largely based on Lady Belchers book

Unusual Bounty/ Pitcairn item often overlooked

$85.00

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The Long Labrador Trail – Dillon Wallace – First Edition 1907

From the Middle Temple to the South Seas – Alexander – First Edition 1927

Early Observations of Marquesan Culture 1595-1813 – Edwin Ferdon

Captain Henry Byam Martin R.N. – Polynesian Journal

Sailor and Beachcomber – Safroni-Middleton – First Edition 1915

Bounty / Pitcairn Item – Harper’s New Monthly Magazine – 1871

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