Anson’s Voyage was one of the great publishing successes of the eighteenth century. The narrative, based on Anson’s own journal, was the epitome of adventure for the mid-eighteenth-century reader, and it was translated into several European languages and stayed in print through numerous editions for many years.
The voyage of 1740-1744 did not begin well: Anson arrived in Canton in 1742 with a handful of men some of whom had "turned mad and idiots", but his...
This most romantic voyage image from the 1821 French edition of Krusenstern’s Voyage Autour du Monde has been aptly described as giving a “Midsummer Night’s Dream” vision of the Pacific. This is the first French edition of the account of Krusenstern’s voyage: the beautiful atlas of plates, which appears only in this edition, ‘is very important and is difficult to obtain…’ (Hill). From our latest catalogue now online here.
Navigators who saw the future and map-makers who kept their secrets. This recent Financial Review article highlights books from a private collection we are handling for sale. Part 1 Early Voyages can be viewed here and Part 2 Imaginary Voyages here . The third part, currently in preparation, will offer a selection of English voyage books before Cook.
read more about Elon Musk has nothing on these early explorers...
The second part of a catalogue of books from a private collection and features Imaginary Voyages.
A fascinating genre--one of the quirkiest examples included is a 17th Century work in which the narrator of the tale tells of his shipwreck and how he had washed up on a floating island where he was privileged to be allowed an intimate glimpse of an hermaphrodite world. Rare, with the wonderful engraved frontispiece depicting one of the island’s cross-dressing...
read more about Imaginary Voyages and Cross-dressing courtiers
During the various lockdowns at home and overseas, we are exhibiting at two online events, a Transatlantic Book Fair with our colleagues in England and America, and a joint catalogue with our colleagues in Australia and New Zealand -- details here. Our catalogues for both fairs can be seen by clicking here.
The first part of our catalogue of books from a private library.
The collection is one formed by a long-standing collector and friend of Hordern House over the last four decades. For the first part we are concentrating on early voyage and discovery books from the library, including several voyage collections. View here
The second part of the catalogue, currently in preparation, will offer imaginary voyage books from the same collection.
Try their new catalogue! The State Library of New South Wales is a short walk from Hordern House, and a favourite port of call for us. Its holdings -- of books, manuscripts, paintings and all historical materials -- are amazing. The Library incorporates many collections including the Mitchell Library itself (which started it all), the Dixson collection, Joseph Banks Papers, the Holtermann photographic collection, the brilliant assembly of original First Fleet journals, and many many...
Art Signifikant, the art-lovers group run by our friends at Michael Reid Gallery, recently arranged for Simon Hewson to film us talking about the art of discovery and exploration . This was one of three such short films produced with the support of the City of Sydney. You can see the video here.
They said "This film by Simon Hewson provides access to Hordern House founding Director Derek McDonnell for our Art Members program Art Signifikant...
We recently welcomed members of ART SIGNIFIKANT, a select art program curated by James Dorahy of Michael Reid Gallery, Sydney.
By candlelight, to the backdrop of subtle piano music, members viewed a treasure trove of early books, manuscripts, and paintings. The evening was accompanied by two brief talks given by Derek McDonnell and Anne McCormick. Derek spoke of the major voyages of exploration to Australia and the Pacific in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth...
We're sometimes asked what "original condition" really looks like: it varies widely according to type time and place of publication of course, but here's a particularly striking example. Canon Guillaume Baston's rare 4-volume fantasy about the Tahitian Omai, who came back to England on Cook's second voyage, "Narrations d’Omaï, Insulaire de la Mer du Sud, Ami et Companion de Voyage du Capitaine Cook", was published in Rouen in 1790. As issued, and before being put...
Rue La Pérouse, in Paris’s wealthy 16th arrondissement, was so named for the explorer in 1864. At that time Parisian street signs were made from a hard Volvic lava stone, enamelled on the surface in a process developed by the Sèvres factories, only to be replaced by the familiar modern enamelled metal plates in the late 1930s. We recently discovered a pair of the original stone street sign plaques, “Rue La Pérouse” and “16me Arrt.”...
Charles Noury (1809-1869), a French naval officer born in Nantes, spent a number of years on service in the Pacific where he was entranced by the Marquesas islands. Years later, in his retirement, he studied and shared his collection of Pacific and especially Marquesan artefacts, and his Album Polynésien, an extremely rare and beautiful illustrated description of these and of observations that he made there, was published in Nantes in 1861. Among the wonderful depictions...
read more about Marquesan artefacts, and the queen's tattooed hand
