Online Lists

Papua & New Guinea

Papua & New Guinea

This themed list spans five centuries of material relating to Western encounters with Papua and New Guinea. From Ruscelli’s double-hemisphere world-map revised for the 1598 printing of Ptolemy’s Geographia to the fine watercolour-portrait of Koapena, the Hood River region Chief and his meeting with the Australian Squadron leader Erskine recorded in a substantial photographic album.

Costume

Costume

Whether in the highly stylized aesthetic of the Parisian art deco designer George Barbier, pioneering anthropologies in voyage accounts, in maps, portraits, games or tools for teaching the young, this month’s themed list explores costume in all its forms. Often images were so striking they re-occur in accounts decades — or centuries later. The spirit behind many of the works is very much that of the Enlightenment — a tremendous curiosity about newly discovered parts of the world and about human behaviour, particularly for ritualised behavior. The late Professor Bernard Smith noted (here specifically of the work of St-Sauveur included in this list) ‘The engravings published in Cook’s Voyages provided new visual information about many previously unknown peoples, and greatly enlarged Europe’s knowledge of the family of man… as artists copied the engravings so they altered them still further in the direction of European pre-conceptions, the anthropological and ethnographic intentions of the originals being diverted increasingly to fulfil the demands of taste and the intrinsic needs of decoration.’ (European Vision and the South Pacific, p. 113).

Imaginary Voyages

Imaginary Voyages

Our latest themed list spans four centuries of imaginary voyages: whimsical, pedagogical, philosophical, fantastical, satirical: all explorations of Utopia or the world as it will or ought to be. Many offer prescient insight and many are absurd or comedic. Works by Vairasse, the rare "Histoire der Sevarambes" (an imaginary voyage to western Australia), and Foigny's "Les Avantures de Jacques Sadeur dans la découverte ...de la Terre Australe" are present, the earliest by the Dominican Tommasso Campanella prophesying (as a few in this list do) a coming Theocracy. Works by two of the great scholars of humanist thought: Thomas More's "Utopia" and Erasmus' "Praise of Folly" appear together in a very attractive French edition.

Antarctic Exploration

Antarctic Exploration

A selection of manuscript and printed rarities from the 18th & 19th Century, including Cook, Kerguelen, Dumont D'Urville and Wilkes through to those from the heroic age of Antarctic exploration represented by Amundsen, Mawson and (Frederick!) Cook.

Broadsides

Broadsides

Thirteen broadsides and news printings 1780-1886: three relating to George Anson, two celebrating his naval conquests and one, rather less gloriously concerning the control of venereal disease amongst seamen signed by him as Admiral; a rare Sydney-printed poem lauding the generosity of the merchant Quong Tart; a vivid pictorial printing advertising “dioramic lectures” celebrating Australia & America which toured England in 1850, together with a stirringly large broadside protesting Edward Eyre in Jamaica; and one relating to the abortive attempt by George Grey to force his way into the British Parliament.

Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

Including Choris's most beautiful colour-plate books of the Pacific and Grasset de Saint-Sauveur's unusual Tableau of islanders of the Pacific this themed on-line list includes accounts of Cook's Third Voyage by Ellis and Rickman, a charming French work for the young with plates drawn mainly from Cook; Fleurieu's account of the first French commercial voyage to the Northwest Coast, the second great Russian expedition by Kotzebue and a Swedish edition of Meares' voyage account.

Voyage Books from two private collections

Voyage Books from two private collections

A selection of voyage material from two significant private collections. It includes Bligh's classic Voyage account, and Barrow's popular Mutiny account, a fine copy of Parkinson's Voyage to the South Seas uncut in original boards,a handsome set of Cook's three voyage accounts with uniform contemporay provenance, Crozet's Voyage to the South Sea--of significance to Australia and New Zealand and the Voyage of La Perouse-- one of the finest narratives of maritime exploration ever published.  

Hawaii

Hawaii

A selection of rare books and prints on the Hawaiian islands, from first discovery to the late nineteenth century. It includes: Captain Cook and Hawaii; surreptitious accounts written by sailors aboard the third voyage; and the French and Russian expeditions of scientific enquiry; as well as  Mission Press books,social history and ethnography.

Cartography

Cartography

A diverse selection of cartographic material from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. In addition to freestanding maps the list includes bound volumes with their charts as issued, as well as a separate section of historically significant atlases. The list concludes with some scarce books relating to the history of map-making, and a handful of recently published reference books.

Convict history and transportation

Convict history and transportation

The penal history of Australia, presented in an eclectic range of books, reports and manuscripts. Some unusual items are included, including a nineteenth-century needlework sampler featuring a ditty about Botany Bay, and a lengthy autograph manuscript regarding convicts and prisons by Alexandre Dumas, the author of 'The Count of Monte Cristo'.