REVIEWS
BY RICHARD H. DILLON
Raymond John Howgego's Encyclopedia of Exploration is a four-part set of books from Derek McDonnell's Hordern House in New South Wales. It is an extra-ordinary example of modern publishing and a tour de force of one-man geography, history and bibliography.
London's Times Literary Supplement termed the effort "a towering work of scholarship," and early reviewers were astonished that such a powerful reference set could be the work of just one man. We share their awe. Surprisingly, Howgego is not an academic historian by trade, but a physicist whose avocation, the study of exploration, has led him to follow in the footsteps of many explorers. Important to his scholarship is Howgego's mastery of several languages and his gift of speed-reading.
Volume I covered exploration to 1800; Volume II to 1850. The final era, exploration from 1850 to 1940, appeared in two volumes. The one in hand is titled Encyclopedia of Exploration 1850 to 1940, the Oceans, Islands and Polar Regions. It sells for $245. Its companion, Continental Exploration, 1830-1940, will be reviewed in the QN-L.
Volume III extends the Age of Discovery or Age of Reconnaissance, which got under way at the end of the 15th Century and flourished particularly in the 18th Century of Cook, LaPerouse, Vancouver and Bougainville. These pioneers were gone by 1850, but Howgego skillfully traces the continued multi-national expansion in Victorian times by lesser navigators in the Pacific, Indian Ocean, South China Sea, and the Poles. Since the set is published in Australia, an island so large it is a continent, the author gives extra attention to the world's largest islands-New Zealand, Borneo, New Caledonia, Sumatra, Celebes (Sulawesi)-and to our globe's extremities, the Arctic and Antarctic.
Of special interest to this reviewer is the author's handling of Hawaii. He devotes parts of five pages to the history of the Sandwich Islands and then adds four full pages of bibliography. Howgego breaks his bibliographies into primary and secondary sources, and he locates manuscripts and archives for our follow-up reference and research.
Most of the 3,000 or so main entries are biographical, with cross-references suggesting the individual's major areas of exploration. Besides traditional navigators and explorers, the author includes scientists, such as Louis Agassiz and Franz Boas, missionaries, and single-handed small boat voyagers like Joshua Slocum and Bernard Gilboy. The latter sailed, alone, to Australian waters from Marin County-Fort Baker's Horseshoe Cove!) Professional writers are here, too, like Joseph Conrad and Louis Becke.
Included, too, are the Victorian period's amateur circumnavigators, world travelers on cruise ships. They include Mark Twain and Nellie Bly. Besides Ms. Bly representing women, there is Lady Brassey; the remarkable Isabella Bird; and even San Rafael's Louise Boyd in the Arctic. Howgego also discusses such pirates and blackbirders (slavers) as Bully Hayes. Aviation brings the story of polar exploration up to the author's cut-off date of 1940.