Catalogues

Voyages & Natural History

Voyages & Natural History

A shortlist including a fine original watercolour attributed to George Tobin (1768-1838), marine artist for Flinders and Bligh on the Providence;  a rare first edition in Swedish of Bligh's Voyage to the South Sea 1795; the first major comparative study to illustrate Australian insects, 1789-1825 by Guillaume Antoine Olivier and Pierre André Latreille, and Characteres Generum Plantarum… 1776,  a pioneer work on the botany of Australia and the South Pacific by father and son naturalists Johann Reinhold and Georg Forster.

 

July 2023

July 2023

Including natural history with the rare first printing of one of Alfred Russel Wallace’s most significant papers: his important text on butterfly variation on the Malay Peninsula; fine illustrated books, literature, and a rare manuscript letter by James Cook, signed by him, written just prior to the arduous second voyage.

Pickwick!

Pickwick!

We offer here an attractive small group of Pickwicks.
Described in the 1930s as “one of the three or four most remarkable books in the whole course of English literature”, perception of that status may have changed a little in the century since, but Dickens’ great and sympathetic classic remains a highpoint of both literature and collecting. 

Pictorial Maritime History

Pictorial Maritime History

AS THE LOCKS ARE DISCARDED and our Island Home again takes its place on the world stage, Hordern House has chosen a selection of original maps, pictures and engravings that illustrate the diverse legacy of early European explorers and artists who charted and recorded our seas.
The earliest engraving is the 1571 rare map by Arias Montanus which shows for the first time on a world map a single southern continent. The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are represented by the remarkable art emanating from French and English explorers in the Pacific.
Two magnificent Pacific paintings are also offered; the superb large 1859 portrait of Admiral Sir George Seymour, commander-in-chief of the Pacific Station, and Conrad Martens’ 1836 View of Tahiti painted in Sydney after his sojourn on H.M.S Beagle with Charles Darwin. The cover image shows detail from a vibrant depiction of Kingston Harbour, Ireland, with a fascinating provenance: a valuable record of two worlds. 
Pacific voyages and major travel

Pacific voyages and major travel

The 1821 French edition of Krusenstern’s world voyage puts us in mind of a Pacific Midsummer Night’s Dream with its enchanting lithographs, while the aquatints in the 1802 Relación of the Spanish voyage to the American Northwest coast include a depiction of a breathtaking celebration at Nootka Sound in 1792. These are accompanied in our new catalogue by other major voyage or travel books including Laplace’s formidable account of his world voyage, which is also superbly illustrated with aquatint plates, as is the beautiful copy of Lycett’s Views Australia, or New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land Delineated... . The fine set of Cook’s Voyages in the catalogue belonged to one of his early shipmates.

Voyage art & natural history

Voyage art & natural history

Including a rare lithographed view by Conrad Martens, an original watercolour by Major James Wallis, artist of the famous early views of Sydney and New South Wales, works of natural history and portraits of Alexander Macleay and the naturalist James Smith; and the work pictured, The Friend of Australia a  significant if eccentric proposal for the exploration of the Australian interior, the supreme monument to the speculative geography of the 1820s and 1830s.