Review By Merrill Distad
University of Alberta
The Encyclopedia of Exploration, Volume III: 1850 -1940 Oceans Islands and Polar Regions
Hordern House Rare Books
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Raymond John Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration 1850-1940: A Comprehensive Reference Guide to the History and Literature of Exploration, Travel, and Colonization in the Oceans, Islands, New Zealand, and the Polar Regions from 1850 to the Early Decades of the Twentieth Century. Potts Point [Sydney], New South Wales: Hordern House, 2006. Pp. x + 724. Bibliographies. Indexes. Cloth: AUS$245 and US$200 and ISBN 1-875567-41-0.
In reviewing the first two volumes of Raymond Howgego's scholarly masterpiece - see Bulletin of the Pacific Circle 11 (October 2003), 9-11 and 15 (October 2005), 22-24 - this reviewer nearly exhausted his stock of superlatives. Now, only two years after the appearance of the second volume, the author and publisher have brought forth a third, closing a gap of almost a century after 1850. So large did this instalment grow, however, that it was necessary to split it into two parts, the second half of which, covering the continental land masses, is even now in the press. The final volume will soon complete what is surely one of the most significant reference projects of the last generation.
The volume at hand covers the oceans, islands, and polar regions from 1850 to about 1940. Its 521 articles include biographical information for nearly 3,000 people who were engaged in exploration (about two-thirds of them "leaders," and one-third "participants"), as well as covering every major island or island group. The format continues to devote separate articles to the major expeditions of prominent explorers-thus according Ernest Shackleton seven articles vs. Robert Scott's three-and to regions of the larger islands and eras in their history-devoting, for example, three articles to Hawaii, four to New Guinea and ten to New Zealand. Major articles are devoted to Antarctic and Arctic exploration, and somewhat shorter ones to other themes, including new innovations as Aviation-divided into lighter-than-airs and aeroplanes-and Telegraph Cables. Wide-ranging hydrographic expeditions are covered, as are circumnavigators. Women also appear in significant numbers for the first time-including archaeologist Zelia Nuttall, artist Marianne North, Arctic scientist Louise Boyd, ethnographer Katherine Routledge, and the indefatigable Isabella Bird Bishop. Mere tourists are generally excluded, save for an article on World Travelers, although those self-described "tramps," Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Jack London have articles to themselves.
This latest volume contains more than 14,000 bibliographic citations, divided between primary and secondary sources, cited in their original languages and, where extant, published translations. These, quite apart from the biographical and thematic entries, are astonishingly comprehensive and well worth the price of the book. The author's decision to append biographies of "participants" to those of their "leaders" avoids repetition, and relieves the reader of the need to make those connections. The whole is tied nicely together by the Index of Persons, keyed to the running heads in the text, as well as by an Index of Regional, Island and General Articles, and an Index of Ships, Boats, Aeroplanes and Airships.
Volume 3 of this scholarly tour de force brings the total number of articles thus far published to 3,580 containing more than 44,000 bibliographic citations, articles notable not only for their comprehensiveness, but for the excellence of their author's prose. The publishers have, once again, done the author proud, with a handsome, splendidly printed and bound volume, in which the absence of maps is perhaps the only significant, albeit quite justifiable, compromise. Like its predecessors, this third volume is monumental, comprehensive, authoritative, and now, more than ever, indispensable.
Merrill Distad University of Alberta |
