Kenneth HILL
The Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages, at the University of California, San Diego. Second edition, revised and enlarged, 2004.
The long awaited substantial revision and reorganisation of this important bibliography of Pacific voyages, jointly published with W. Reese Company of New Haven. Since its original publication in three volumes between 1974 and 1983, the Hill catalogue has been an essential reference for anyone interested in Pacific Voyages, Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest, and the South Seas. The first edition has long been out of print and commands high prices in the antiquarian market.
Thick small quarto, with a frontispiece portrait; 685 pages, bound in blue cloth. Fully indexed by author and title, and with chronological index of publication dates.
Reduced online price
Australian: $75 (Approx. US $78, Euro €59)
ISBN 9780939226108
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About the Book
Winner of the Western History Association's prestigious Dwight L. Smith Award for 2006. The new, substantially revised and extensively enlarged edition of the catalogue of the magnificent collection of Pacific Voyages, donated to the University of California, San Diego, by Kenneth and Dorothy Hill in 1974. An essay by Jonathan Hill about his late father, Kenneth Evan Hill as a Book Collector, describes the formation of the collection and celebrates this new edition of the catalogue, which had been keenly anticipated by Kenneth Hill. This new edition improves on its predecessor in several key ways: At last it presents the contents of the collection in a single alphabetical sequence, and includes all material added to the collection since the first edition was published, with hundreds of new items described. Many errors in the first edition have been corrected and numerous annotations expanded. Collations are now given in a consistent format. The nearly 2000 bibliographical entries are numbered for the first time, for easy reference and citation. The entire work is in a single volume, handsomely printed and bound, and designed to lie flat for easy use. The comprehensive general index and chronological index will greatly assist the researcher. In every way, the "new" Hill qualifies as the "second and best" edition of this major work of reference, which will always be the first port of call for anyone interested in the bibliography and history of the publication of voyages in the Pacific, from major to minor.
Reviews
Review 1.
Rare Book Review, October 2004
Review by Colin Steele
Reprinted by kind permission of the author.
The Hill Pacific book collection was a gift by Kenneth and Dorothy Hill in 1974 to the then recently formed University of California Library at San Diego. The Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages, documenting the collection, was published in three volumes between 1974 and 1983 and quickly became established as a standard reference work. Work on a revised 'new Hill' began in 2000, the year before Hill's death on 8 July 2001.
The new edition, which includes a fascinating memoir of Kenneth Hill's 'descent' into bibliomania by his son Jonathan, completely supersedes its predecessor. The entries in the collection, which include annotations, are now combined into one alphabetical sequence and errors are corrected from the first edition. Some 1,937 items added by Hill and the Library to the collection since the first edition was published are included in this second edition. The whole is supplemented by a bibliographic reference section and comprehensive chronological and general indices.
Lynda Claassen of the UCSD Library indicates in her Foreword that 'the Hill Collection remains the most extensive gathering of books that document early voyages of exploration and discovery in the Pacific'. The publishers state emphatically, however, in their Preface, that this is á catalogue of a collection and NOT a bibliography'. By that they mean that there are many accounts of Pacific voyages that are not included here simply because they are not in the collection. They offer this as a 'friendly reminder to any booksellers... who may be tempted to add "not in Hill" to their own descriptions'!
Hordern House of Sydney and the William Reese Company of New Haven are to be congratulated on producing a handsome major bibliographical reference work, the former building upon the recent success of Forbes's Hawaiian National Bibliography and Howgego's Encyclopedia of Exploration.
Colin Steele
Review 2.
International Journal of Maritime History, Summer 2004
Review by Ray Howgego
Reprinted by kind permission of the author.
The Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages at the University of California, San Diego (William Reese Company, New Haven & Hordern House Ltd, Sydney, 2004).
I have never been quite sure how to interpret that ubiquitous exclamation, 'Not in Hill', which so often adorns the pages of booksellers' catalogues. Should it be taken as a guarantee of the immense rarity of the listed item? Is it a reflection of some sort of smug self-satisfaction? Or could it echo that last gasp of exasperation as the unfortunate purveyor finds himself having to speed-read the fragile leaves of his most cherished acquisition? But what relief must ensue when the volume is actually discovered 'in Hill'. The abstract can be reproduced wholesale (with acknowledgement, of course); little danger of cracking the delicate half-calf; and no need to seek out one of those curious beings who can actually read 17th-century Dutch.
However, my uncertainty aside, there is little doubt that the much quoted Hill Collection has over recent years established its credentials as one of the world's leading sources of reference for maritime historians, book lovers and booksellers alike. It is a sad fact of life that works of bibliography, so often produced in small numbers for a specialist audience, have a habit of going out-of-print at the very moment you most need them; becoming almost as much prized as the objects they describe. If you missed out on the first edition, it's unlikely you'll ever see a second. It was therefore with immense delight that I extricated from its shrink-wrapping this new edition of the Hill Collection.
Kenneth Evan Hill was an 'incurable book collector' who in his forty-seventh year impulsively lavished what his wife, Dorothy, regarded as a small fortune on some early Pacific narratives. That, in 1962, was the start, and for the next ten years boxes of books arrived almost daily at the Hill household. The collection rapidly swelled into every nook and cranny and in 1974 Hill, without a hint of remorse, proudly donated his entire Pacific collection to the library of the University of California's new campus at La Jolla. Then, with a new lease of life, Hill set about acquiring a second collection, albeit restricting his field to zoological and scientific material.
Kenneth Hill was buying books right up to his death in July, 2001, although the increasing scarcity of sought-after volumes and the steep price rises of the eighties and nineties forced him to become ever more selective in his purchases. A gracefully moving biographical tribute to Kenneth Hill prefaces the book, written by his son, Jonathan.
A printed catalogue of the Hill Collection was first published in 1974, but over the next few years many new acquisitions were made, generating a second volume in 1982. An index volume appeared the following year. The present edition combines all three previous volumes, incorporates additions to the collection since the early eighties, and removes anything that has departed elsewhere. The result is eight hundred pages of solid text, although, it must be said, not so solidly bound (the flimsy backstrip creases easily and might benefit from a little preventative surgery.) Refreshingly curt for these days, the book's title is exactly what it describes; The Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages, not 'Catalogue of the Hill Collection', or something more flowery. A catalogue it is; but much more than that. Nor is it strictly limited to voyages in the Pacific. Mr Hill decided at the outset that anything remotely connected with that ocean should qualify for his collection - travellers, expeditions, even the bevy of '49ers that made their way to its coasts, some of them without ever setting eyes on a ship.
The Hill Collection makes no pretence at being a comprehensive bibliography of the Pacific, although not a lot of significance is absent, at least before 1850. For me it is the quality of the abstracts that makes it all so worthwhile. The revised typescript had been trawled before many a learned lady and gentleman, and it soon became clear that only the most minor errors of the earlier edition had escaped the net. The final copy displays an erudition which few will question, however esoteric their judgment. The naturally expected summary of an item's content is often supplemented by a wealth of additional background material; sometimes amounting to a substantial biography. Such an asset should widen its appeal beyond the pure bibliophile - to the historian, the armchair traveller - anybody remotely interested in the history of travel. The personalities that occupy most of its pages are hardly household names, about which the reader would be hard-pressed to find enlightenment elsewhere. In terms of information-per-dollar, the Hill Collection offers excellent value for money. For the collector, bookseller or librarian it is an essential tool of the trade; while for the lay-reader it will provide many years of happy browsing.
Raymond John Howgego