lamdha books -
Catalogue of books on maritime history: ships and sailors, voyages of exploration

45351 Alexander, Caroline The Bounty The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. Viking , New York, 2003. First Edition, 491pp. Illustrated. Minor scuffing to dustwrapper; otherwise, very good to near fine. Click here to order $35

51671 Andrews, Kenneth (ed.) The Last Voyage of Drake and Hawkins Hakluyt Society, Cambridge, 1972. Hardcover, second series, b&w illustrations. Toned page edges. Lightly scuffed dustwrapper with edge and corner wear, rear panel lightly foxed along edges; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good otherwise. This is an account of the expedition of royal and private ships which left Plymouth in 1595 under the command of Drake and Hawkins with the aim of capturing the city of Panama. The expedition ended in total failure, both leaders died and attempts to capture Grand Canary, Puerto Rico and Panama, were all repulsed. Click here to order $35

30388 Aughton, Peter The Fatal Voyage Captain Cook's Last Great Journey Interlink, Northampton, 2005. Hardback in dustwrapper, remainder, new. Captain Cook was the greatest explorer of his age. By the age of forty-seven, he had captained two long voyages of discovery and charted the east coast of Australia, the whole of New Zealand and innumerable exotic islands in the vastness of the Pacific. He was rewarded with a comfortable pension for life and looked set to spend his retirement with his family at Greenwich. After many years at sea, he could not succumb to the monotony of life on shore. Against the advice of his doctors and undoubtedly, his long suffering wife, Cook volunteered his services as commander on the dangerous voyage to find the fabled North West Passage. Click here to order $18

58914 Austin, K.A. The Voyage of the Investigator Rigby, Adelaide, 1964. Hardcover, 222pp., b&w illustrations and colour frontispiece. Page edges lightly toned and spotted. Dustwrapper chipped and creased at head and tail of spine and upper front and lower rear edges; small tear in upper front edges; scuffed corners; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Else very good. No voyage in the history of Australia was as important as Matthew Flinder's Investigator - the first to circumnavigate Australia and to come near to proving it to be a continent and not two or more islands. Flinders linked the voyages of the Dutch along the west and south coasts of Australia with the discoveries of Cook on the east coast, and was gave Australia its name. Here Austin tells of the explorations and adventures of "the Great Denominator", his imprisonment by the French, his disappointments, his triumph, and his death. Click here to order $25

15896 Badger, G M (ed.) Captain Cook Navigator & Scientist Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1970. Hardcover, b&w illustrations. Page edges lightly spotted. Boards slightly worn along edges and corners. Dustwrapper creased on front cover. Otherwise very good. Click here to order $22

30115 Barbour, Philip L. (ed.) The Jamestown Voyages Under The First Charter 1606-1609 Hakluyt Society, Cambridge, 1969. Two volumes, b&w illustrations. Hardcover, slightly toned page edges. Light blue card dustwrapper worn along edges and corners with chipping and tears on head and tail of spine (2cm & 3cm respectively on Volume 1). Dustwrappers discoloured along spines; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good otherwise. In December 1606, one hundred and twenty emigrants left London in three small vessels. They landed nearly five months later in Virginia and founded a settlement which they called Jamestown. Thus, the first permanent English colony was established in America. During the first few years, the colony was beset by extreme hardship. The local Indians regarded the settlement as an infringement of their territory and were hostile to the settlers. Famine, plague and internal dissension also took their toll. The author collected all known documents pertaining to Jamestown, and annotated them; the collection gives a fascinating and graphic picture of the colony that was destined to become the United States. Click here to order $90

14779 Barr, William & Williams, Glyndwr (eds.) Voyages in Search of a Northwest Passage 1741-1747: 2 volumes Volume 1: The Voyage of Christopher Middleton 1741-1742; Volume 2: The Voyage of William Moor and Francis Smith 1746-1747. Hakluyt Society, London, 1994. Hardcovers, b&w illustrations, maps. Minor wear at corners and slight shelf-wear. Dustwrappers professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Otherwise near fine. Click here to order $75

30032 Barrow, Sir John & Kennedy, Gavin (ed.) The Mutiny of the Bounty An illustrated edition of Sir John Barrow's Original Account David Godine, Boston, 1980. Hardcover, b&w illustrations. College stamp on endpaper. Page edges lightly spotted. Upper boards worn along edges. Dustwrapper worn along edges with some chipping, corners worn; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Otherwise good/very good. This story has been told many times, yet of all its chroniclers, none was better placed or more objective than Sir John Barrow, Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty. Besides having access to all Admiralty records, Barrow knew personally many of the participants in the mutiny. He used Bligh's narrative (1790) of the event as one source in formulating his opinions; other sources were the Log of the Bounty (1787-1789), the letters and papers of Peter Heywood and James Morrison (two of the mutineers) and the minutes of the 1792 court martial of some of the mutineers. Click here to order $25

15119 Beaglehole, J C The Life of Captain James Cook Adam & Charles Black, London, 1974. First edition. Owner's inscription on endpaper. Spotting to endpapers, prelims and page edges. Lower edge of boards and corners worn. Dustwrapper worn along upper edge over spine and on corners; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Otherwise very good. A still classic biography the editor of Cook's copious Journals and the culmination of a lifetime of research. Click here to order $100

41703 Blainey, Geoffrey Sea of Dangers Captain Cook and his Rivals Viking, 2008. Hardcover, with colour plates. Minor shelf wear, near fine in like dustwrapper. Two ships set out in search of a missing continent; the St Jean-Baptiste, a French merchant ship commanded by Jean de Surville, and the Endeavour, a small British naval vessel captained by James Cook. Both crews battled extreme hardships including scurvy, storms and loneliness; but they also experienced the euphoria of 'discovering' new lands, and the fascination of meeting peoples so different they may have come from different worlds. Click here to order $30

30070 Bligh, William A Voyage to the South Sea A Facsimilie edition Hutchinson, Richmond, 1979. Quarto, 264 pp. Library storage stamp, spotting to page edges; near fine in lightly worn dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Click here to order $75

45434 BLIGH, William [BACH, John (ed.)] The Bligh Notebook Allen & Unwin, North Sydney, 1987. 8vo Hardcover, [xii ,336pp] Transcription and Facsimile edted by John Bach. Includes fold-out charts and facsimile of the original notebook 28 April to 14 June 1789. Illustrated. Minor wear, very good in like dustwrapper, with protective clear book wrap. The small leather-bound notebook written up in Lieutenant William Bligh's own hand in 1789 is one of the greatest treasures of the National Library of Australia. Virtually unknown before the Library purchased it at a London auction in 1976, the Bligh Notebook was first published in a limited facsimile edition in 1986. Between 28th April and 14 June 1789 Bligh set down in the Notebook his records of courses and weather, navigational observations and calculations, details of the meagre rations and sour comments on the men's complaints and behaviour. Among the rough maps is a detailed tracing of their track up the north-east Australian coast before the last desperate leg of the 6000 km voyage to Timor. Carefully chosen illustrations accompany the introduction, including a contemporary map of the track of the longboat and a copy of the original plan from which her builders constructed her to perform as Bligh was able to note from very real experience, 'wonderfully well'. Click here to order $45

30088 Bowker, R M & Bligh, Lt. William Mutiny! Aboard H M Armed Transport 'Bounty' in 1789 Bowker & Bertram, Old Bosham, 1978. Hardcover, b&w illustrations. Page edges spotted. Dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Otherwise very good. Click here to order $30

51683 Boxer, C R (ed. & trans.) Further Selections From the Tragic History of the Sea 1559-1565 Narratives of the shipwrecks of the Portuguese East Indiamen Aguia and Garca (1559) Sao Paulo (1561) and the misadventures of the Brazil-ship Santo Antonio (1565) Hakluyt Society, Cambridge, 1968. Hardcover, second series, b&w illustrations and pull-out maps. Slightly rolled binding. Page edges lightly foxed. Blue card dustwrapper with edge and corner wear, spine and edges browned; some minor chipping; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good otherwise. Professor Boxer describes the lives of the three chroniclers, and gives bibliographical details of their works. The narratives are translated from the original accounts which Bernardo Gomes de Brito included in his Historia Tragico-Maritima. The present volume is a companion to the earlier work, The Tragic History of the Sea, 1589-1622. Click here to order $40

39497 Bradford, Ernle Christopher Columbus Michael Joseph, London, 1973. Hardcover, small quarto, 288pp., mainly b&w illustrations. Lightly spotted page edges. Dustwrapper slightly scuffed with wear along edges and corners and small tear on upper edge; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Christopher Columbus, archetypal figure as sailor, adventurer and explorer, was also, interestingly, a mystic who was profoundly religious and yet at the same time ambitious with an eye to the main chance. While dreaming of recapturing Jerusalem from the Moslems, he was also quite capable of driving a hard bargain with his employers as to the rights and privileges and riches that should accrue to himself if he succeeded in his mission of finding a way to the Indies by sailing due west across the Atlantic. Click here to order $25

33094 Bradley, William A Voyage to New South Wales The Journal of Lieutenant William Bradley of HMS Sirius (2 vols) Ure Smith, 1969. 2 vols, hardcover. Vol. 1 (text), 495pp.: Light foxing to prelims, spotting to page edges; boards rubbed at edges; dustwrapper slightly creased at edges, but bright and intact; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Vol. 2 (charts), 22 charts reproduced in facsimile from original manuscript charts: slipcase slightly worn, with one tear to front panel, but intact. When the First Fleet sailed through the heads of Port Jackson to found a colony on the shores of Sydney Cove, there was no shortage of chroniclers of the event. Each in his own way, varying from the polished prose of Tench to the half-literate scrawlings of Private Easty, set down what he could of the colony of convicts and soldiers in a land almost beyond reach of civilisation. Most meticulous in observation and recording was William Bradley whose handwritten journal, clearly penned and beautifully illustrated with some of the first watercolour views and charts is here faithfully reproduced in facsimilie. Click here to order $120

37493 Brown, Jackum Lighthouses Cassell, London, 2005. Hardcover, small square quarto. Colour illustrations. Slightly scuffed dustwrapper. Otherwise, near fine. Click here to order $18

33206 Danielsson, Bengt What Happened on the Bounty Allen & Unwin, 1963. Hardcover. Foxed/spotted prelims, page edges. Boards worn at edges, some discolouration; dustwrapper underside heavily foxed, otherwise bright and intact. Good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Bengt Danielsson, of Kon-Tiki fame, whose books on the South Seas are still widely read, knows intimately the Polynesian islands visited by Bligh and the mutineers, and was special adviser to MGM during the preparation of the film, 'Mutiny on the Bounty'. His timely reconstruction of what happened on the Bounty, and the incredible adventures of the survivors, subsequently culminating, of course, in a naval court martial, enables us to see Bligh in a more favourable light, and perhaps to agree with one of this fellow-officers on a later voyage, who wrote on Bligh's death, "Let our old Captain's frailties be forgotten, and view him as a man of science and an excellent practical seaman". Click here to order $30

58663 Drake-Brockman, Henrietta Voyage to Disaster University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, 2006. Hardback, large 8vo, 304pp., b/w illustrations. New. Remainder. Mutiny, murder, rape, torture; a priceless treasure fuelling the basest human greed and a courageous journey in search of rescue. This is the story of the Batavia, wrecked off the coast of Western Australia in 1629 and part of the myth and legend of Australian history. Henrietta Drake-Brockman's ten years of meticulous research was instrumental in the discovery of the Batavia wreck in 1963, an event which shaped the future of maritime archaeology and historic shipwrecks legislation in Western Australia. Click here to order $18

42420 Dunmore, John Where Fate Beckons The Life of Jean-Francois De La Perouse ABC, Sydney, 2006. Hardcover, 292pp., b&w illustrations. Owner's name on endpaper. Minor wear, near fine in like dustwrapper. The mystery of the disappearance of Jean Francois de la Perouse in 1788 during his long voyage of discovery in the Pacific was solved 40 years later, yet is still fascinates people and expeditions continue to search for his body and the remains of his ships. Click here to order $30

33330 Easty, John Memorandum of the Transactions of a Voyage from England to Botany Bay 1787-1793 A First Fleet Journal Trustees of the Public Library of NSW & Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1965. Hardcover small quarto, 186pp. Prelims foxed, page edges slightly spotted; boards clean and firm, some wear to edges, spine head and tail bumped; dustwrapper creased at edges, some fraying, yellowing. Good in like dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Easty, a private marine with very little education. By no means a model soldier, but one who drinks and disobeys with the rest of them, and receives his share of floggings. With unpractised hand, he scrawls and splashes his way across the page, noting down the trivia and tragedy of the day-to-day existence in the new settlement. Click here to order $75

58178 Estensen, Miriam The Life of George Bass Surgeon and Sailor of the Enlightenment. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2005. Hardcover, 259pp., b&w and colour illustrations. Page edges lightly toned. Dustwrapper lightly worn at edges. Very good. The brilliant and charismatic Bass embodied the Age of Enlightenment. He was a man of intense intellectual curiosity, of wide-ranging talents and contradictions as well. He had friends among Sydney's political 'radicals' but was also of the establishment. He was a skilled surgeon who preferred navigation to medicine, a naval officer who put his career on hold in an attempt to make a fortune and a man deeply in love but who abandoned his 'beloved Bess Bass' for the rewards of an adventurous voyage into commerce. - A richly detailed account of the life and mysterious disappearance of a gifted and complicated man. Click here to order $25

41809 Fennell, Philip & King, Marie (eds) John Devoy's Catalpa Expedition New York University, 2006. Hardcover, b&w illustrated. Minor shelf wear. Near fine. The whaling ship which aided in the audacious rescue of Irish political prisoners from the Australian coast. Drawn for Devoy's own records and the ship's logbooks. Click here to order $30

42324 Finnis, Bill Captain James Cook Seaman and Scientist Chaucer Press, London, 2003. Quarto hardcover, 252pp., colour & b&w illustrations. Minor edge wear to dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. The author draws on his own extensive sailing experience to produce a vivid picture of the realities of eighteenth century sea voyages and offers a comprehensive portrait of his subject. Illustrated with photographs, sketches as well as engravings of the period. Click here to order $45

39417 Firstbrook, Peter (foreword by H.R.H. Prince Philip) The Voyage of Matthew: John Cabot & the Discovery of North America Bay Books & Tapes, San Francisco, 1997. Small quarto, b&w and colour illustrations, 192pp. paperback. Near fine. Click here to order $24

51680 Fisher, Raymond H (ed.) The Voyage of Semen Dezhnev in 1648 Bering's Precursor with Selected Documents Hakluyt Society, Cambridge, 1981. Hardcover, second series. B&w illustrations. Lightly toned & soiled page edges. Owner's name on endpaper. Lightly scuffed dustwrapper with edge and corner wear; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good otherwise. In 1736 Gerhard Muller, a member of the new Russian Academy of Sciences, while gathering historical materials in Siberia, uncovered in Yakutsk reports briefly describing a voyage in 1648 from the Arctic river, Kolyma, around a great rocky promontory to a point south of the Pacific river, Anadyr. The reports were those of Semen Dezhnev, leader of the expedition and one of its 26 survivors. They gave very few details about the voyage, but said enough to lead Muller to conclude that it demonstrated the separation of Asia and America, a matter insufficiently determined in 1728 by Vitus Bering. Click here to order $35

49972 FORESTER, C S (ed.) The Adventures of John Wetherell Michael Joseph, London 1954. Hardcover, 275pp., b&w illustrations. Endpapers and page edges lightly toned and spotted. Dustwrapper lightly worn at edges; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. The authentic diary of a 19th century British seaman, impressed into His Majesty's Service to fight Bonaparte. Click here to order $35

44988 FRIEDENBERG, Zachary Medicine Under Sail Naval Institute Press, Maryland, 2002. 8vo - over 7" - 9" tall. Hardcover, [ix, 172pp] The contribution of maritime doctors and their history. From the 15th to 18th centuries. Illustrated. Minor wear, near fine in like dustwrapper. The author, a surgeon and prolific writer on medical subjects, illuminates how a few perceptive doctors managed to break down daunting barriers to improve the sailor's lot while enlarging our appreciation for the incredible sacrifices of the sailors who made history in square-rigged ships. Click here to order $40

45307 FRIENDLY, Alfred Beaufort of the Admiralty The Life of Sir Francis Beaufort 1774-1857. Hutchinson, London 1977. Hardcover, 362pp., b&w illustrations. Owner's name on pastedown. Endpapers and page edges lightly toned and spotted. Dustwrapper lightly worn at edges; small tear to lower front edge: professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. To yachtsmen, the name 'Beaufort' signifies the international scale of wind force. To cryptographers, it identifies a famous cypher. Yet these inventions only inadequately represent the tremendous accomplishments of one of the nineteenth century's most gifted and complex figures. For Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort's greatest achievements were the revitalization of the Hydrographic Office and the perfecting of the Admiralty Chart, a standard for accuracy from the 1830s to the present day. Virtually self-educated and having served in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, he suffered nineteen wounds in capturing an enemy vessel from under the guns of a Spanish fortress, and came close to death again from a fanatic's bullet while surveying the Turkish coast. Click here to order $32

11712 Granzotto, Gianni Christopher Columbus The Dream and the Obsession Guild Publishing, London, 1986. Fine in like dustwrapper. Click here to order $17

33099 Hilder, Brett The Voyage of Torres The Discovery of the Southern Coastline of New Guinea and Torres Strait by Capin Luis Baez de Torres in 1606 University of Queensland Press, 1980. Hardcover. Slight spotting to upper page edges; boards clean and firm; dustwrapper creased at edges, underside spotted; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. The brief report Torres sent to the king of Spain after his two small ships reached Manila in May 1607 is tantalizingly vague and ambiguous. The narrative of Don Diego de Prado, an aristocratic adventurer who sailed with Torres, is more detailed but still has frustrating gaps and allows for differences in interpretation. Both these documents were lost to the world for hundreds of years after the voyage. Since Prado's narrative was published in 1930, other clues have come to light from old maps thought to have been based on missing charts drawn by Prado, from documents previously overlooked, and from the discovery that two important lines had been omitted from the transcription of Torres letter to the king. Click here to order $40

57260 Howarth, Stephen Morning Glory A History of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1983. Hardcover, 398pp., b&w illustrations. Coloured pencil numbering on endpaper. Page edges lightly toned and somewhat soiled. Dustwrapper toned; creased along edges; scuffed corners; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. The Japanese navy, unlike any other in the world, arose out of nothing in the space of ten years to a position of world power, and in less than fifty years, returned to nothing. The navy had to be created where previously, for 200 years, it had been a capital offence to build anything larger than a fishing-boat. By 1905 Japan's new Imperial Navy had defeated two of the world's largest empires, China and Russia and had become the respected ally of Britain. But only forty years and two World Wars later the same Imperial Navy had been defeated by the Allies - not only defeated but annihilated - it was no longer even allowed to exist. Using a large proportion of primary sources including archival matieral, interviews with officers, newspapers, official and unofficial accounts, the story unfolds. The Imperial Navy was at war for fifteen of its fifty years; and in that half-century, when some of mankind's worst conflicts took place, the Navy's own worst conflict was an internal, psychological one. Protege of the Royal Navy, it was a Western institution grafted onto an Eastern background. From this came its paradoxes and its central weakness, its rise and fall. Click here to order $40

31310 Johnston, George H. Grey Gladiator HMAS Sydney with the British Mediterranean Fleet Angus & Robertson, 1941. Hardcover. Foxed prelims, page edges; boards worn, bent, stained; dustwrapper frayed, foxed. Good only in like dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. An account of HMAS Sydney's seven months' war service in the Mediterranean in 1940-41. Click here to order $25

50844 KEMP, Peter (ed.) The British Sailor A Social History of the Lower Deck. Dent, London 1970. Hardcover, 241pp., b&w illustrations. Endpapers and page edges lightly toned and spotted. Dustwrapper lightly worn at edges; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. From the time of the Spanish Armada in 1588 to the outbreak of the war in 1914-18. Click here to order $35

33734 Kerr, Margaret & Colin Australia's Early Whalemen Rigby, Adelaide, 1980. Small quarto, 64 pp. Owner's name, some light spotting to upper page edges; else very good in like dustwrapper. Black and white illustrations. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Australia's early whalemen battled turbulent seas, shipwrecks, hunger and disease in their ruthless search for whales. At the mercy of the whale's fury boats were capsized and men drowned. Killer whales darting through the water at thirty knots, frequently towed away boats full of men never to be heard of again. Whaling became a major industry in Australia and Tasmania. Bay whaling stations were set up on many parts of the southern Australian coast and islands. Click here to order $18

10739 LAWSON, Will. Pacific Steamers The History, Rise, and Development of Steamers on the Australian, New Zealand, and Western American Coasts Brown, Son and Ferguson, Glasgow, 1927. Octavo, 244pp., profusely illustrated. Ex-libris Pat Lawlor. The text block is in very good condition with only moderate wear and aging, some spotting to page edges. Pencilled annotations concerning prices of the book in 1948 on the rear pastedown. Three date stamps - 24 Sep 1948, presumed date of purchase - on the rear pastedown, at the top of the rear inner fold of the wrapper and on the rear panel. The wrapper itself is unchipped but there is rubbing and some slight soiling, more to the rear panel. A previous pencilled price of 25/- has been erased from the corner of the front panel but is still discernible. There is still another, again pencilled, price on the rear panel. Dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. A rather good copy otherwise. This is the story of the early endeavours of steamships in the Pacific when there were few docks or repair shops, when most ships were their own foundry; the many wrecks a testimony to this. The early pioneers were not hampered however, by these considerations. The spirit of adventure and enterprise pervaded the development of the engines - where rivalry and competition frequently spurred on the officers to take risks and make innovations to the ships. Illustrations from photographs and paintings add to the gripping quality of the book as well as its historic value. Click here to order $120

32349 Leys, Simon The Wreck of the Batavia A True Story Thunder's Mouth, New York, 2006. Small hardcover, remainder, new. The ship Batavia was wrecked on the edge of a coral archipelago, some fifty miles from the western coast of the Australian continent. Most of the people on board (nearly 300) escaped from drowning only to become victims of a visionary psychopath who organized a methodical massacre of this hapless community. What resulted was a Lord of the Flies scenario, complete with a mad self-appointed rulre, rape, slaughter, heroism and ultimate rescue by the original ship's captain, who had set off across uncharted seas to seek help. Click here to order $14

51603 London, Jack The Cruise of the Snark National Geographic, Washington, 2003. Paperback. New. Remainder. Click here to order $13

34538 McGhee, Robert The Arctic Voyages of Martin Frobisher An Elizabethan Adventure University of Washington, Seattle, 2001. Remainder, hardcover, new. Click here to order $24

49674 MACMILLAN, David S A Squatter Went to Sea Currawong Sydney 1957. Hardcover,165 pp., b&w illustrations. Endpapers and page edges lightly toned. Dustwrapper lightly worn at edges. Very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] The story of Sir William Macleay's New Guinea Expedition (1875) and his life in Sydney. Click here to order $27

33520 Marchant, Leslie R. France Australe A study of French explorations and attempts to found a penal colony and strategic base in south western Australia, 1503-1826 Artlook Books, 1982. Hardcover. Spotted page edges, usual shelf wear to boards; dustwrapper creased at edges, with a tear at upper spine panel. Very good in good dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Based on previously unused naval and other archival records in France France Australe tells the fascinating story of French explorations and plans to colonize western Australia in the pre-British period from 1503-1826. Click here to order $55

37569 Marsden, Peter The Wreck of the Amsterdam Hutchinson, London, 1974. Hardcover, 288pp., b&w illustrations. Page edges spotted/ toned. Dustwrapper worn along edges and corners; tape marks on verso of dustwrapper; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Newspaper cuttings included. Very good otherwise. As Field Archaeologist at London's Guildhall Museum, Peter Marsden was called in when a group of workmen uncovered a wealth of objects on the wreck of the Amsterdam. Three quarters complete, the ship is an almost untouched storehouse of the life of the eighteenth century, and besides the miraculous preservation of the ship herself, an unprecedented number of documents have survived to tell us about the people aboard her and exactly what happened on her dramatic first and last voyage. Click here to order $18

48273 MASON, Herbert B (Edited by) Encylopaedia of Ships and Shipping The Shipping Encylopaedia Limited London 1908 Quarto, 707 pp. Repaired hinges, moderately soiled heavy linen cloth. Leather lettering piece worn and scraped. Pin-size bookworm holes apparent otherwise sound copy of scarce title. Click here to order $180

41205 Miles, Jonathan The Wreck of the Medusa Atlantic Monthly, New York, 2007. Hardcover, 309pp., b&w plates. Dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Remainder,new. On the dawn of July 2, 1816, the French frigate Medusa, bound for the Senegalese port colony of Saint Louis hit a treacherous reef. In the chaos that ensued, a privileged few claimed the lifeboats. One hundred forty-seven men and one woman were herded onto a makeshift raft that was to be towed behind the captain's boat. The towrope was soon severed and the raft set adrift. Those in the lifeboats, landing at different points along the coast of Senegal, trekked two hundred miles through the Sahara without food or water. As horrific as their experiences were, nothing compared to that of those marooned on the raft. Without a compass or many provisions, hit by a storm the first night and during the following days, sweltering heat. The group set upon each other; mayhem, mutiny, and murder ensued. When rescue arrived thirteen days later only fifteen were alive. Click here to order $24

48244 MUNFORD, James Kenneth (ed.) John Ledyard's Journal of Captain Cook's Last Journal Oregon State University Press, Oregon, 1963. Ex-Library. Hardcover, royal 8vo, 264pp. With an Introduction by Sinclair Hitchings and with Notes on Plants by Helen Gilkey and Notes on Animals by Robert Storm. Black and white plates. Top-edge slightly foxed in rubbed dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Page edges lightly foxed. Good. This volume reprints Ledyard's journal complete and annotated for the first time. The introduction, preface, footnotes, appendices, bibliography, illustrations and index make this the most thorough and useful study of this phase of Ledyard's life. Click here to order $45

30966 Olson, William Lion of the China Sea A History of the E & A Line P & O Australia, Sydney, 1976. Small quarto hardcover, 116pp., Black and white and colour plates. Green cloth boards with wear to lower edges and corners. Page edges lightly toned. Illustrated dustwrapper with minor shelf and edge wear; spine sunned. Very good otherwise. This is the history of the E & A Line; it traces its line through all its trials, tribulations and successes and, in its own right, a fascinating section of Australia's maritime history. Click here to order $30

51017 PATESHALL, Nicholas A Short Account of a Voyage Round the Globe in HMS Calcutta 1803-1804 Queensbury Hill Press Australia 198.0 Hardcover, 93pp. Page edges lightly toned. Dustwrapper lightly worn at edges. Very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Nicholas Pateshall was the third lieutenant on the convict ship H M S Calcutta which set sail for New Holland in 1803, on an expedition to collect naval timber and to establish a settlement in the newly discovered bay on the northern shore of Bass Strait. Click here to order $26

40320 Phillips, William D & Carla Rahn The Worlds of Christopher Columbus Cambridge, 1992. Hardcover, b&w illustrations. Page edges lightly spotted. Minor shelf wear. Otherwise, very good in like dustwrapper. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] From Columbus's voyages, and the voyages led by scores of other explorers in the sixteenth century, Europeans learned the true size of their world, and moved inexorably to create a trading network that encompassed it all, accompanied by the spread of European merchants, missionaries, settlers, and bureaucrats to every corner of the earth. Eventually the isolated worlds that had occupied the globe in Columbus's time merged into the interdependent world we live in today. Seen in its broader context, his life becomes a prism reflecting the wide range of human experience for the past five hundred years. Click here to order $28

57226 Playford, Philip Carpet of Silver The Wreck of the Zuytdorp. University of Western Australia Press, Crawley, 2006. Hardback, 260pp., b/w illustrations. New. Remainder. The Zuytdorp was one of the great ships of the Dutch East India Company which disappeared without trace after leaving Cape Town in 1712.The ship was carrying a cargo of silver coins. Phillip Playford, a geologist, discovered the wreckage of the ship in Western Australia. The adventurous story of the ship is here brought to life, with its voyages, disappearance, discovery and identification; looting of the treasure, and courageous archaeological investigation. Click here to order $18

51674 Quinn, David & Alison (eds.) The English New England Voyages 1602-1608 Hakluyt Society, Cambridge, 1983. Hardcover, second series, b&w illustrations. Lightly scuffed dustwrapper with edge and corner wear; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good otherwise. The publication of the narrative accounts of the voyages of Gosnold (1602) and Waymouth (1605) opened up for English readers what was known as Norumbega, the later New England. They are the first documents of the exploration of that region to have been published since that of Verrazzano's voyage (1524) in 1556. To the accounts of these voyages by John Brereton and James Rosier there was added by Purchas in 1625 the material of Martin Pring's voyage of 1603 and some scraps of information on the attempted colony by the Virginia Company of Plymouth at Sagadahoc on the Kennebec River in 1607-8. These and ancillary documents have been collected here and give a fuller understanding of the New England colony at its inception. Click here to order $35

34913 Reed, A W & A H (eds.) Captain Cook in New Zealand / Captain Cook in Australia- 2 Volumes Extracts from the journals of Captain James Cook giving a full account in his own words of his adventures and discoveries in New Zealand/ Australia. A H & A W Reed, Wellington, 1969. Hardback. Very good in very good dustwrapper. Half-tone plates present a series of reproductions of early engravings, and of modern photographs of places in New Zealand of Cook interest, and in Australia of places of interest on the east coast and in Tasmania of Cook interest. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] In one volume have been gathered together all the records of Cook's travels relating to his voyages to and around New Zealand. As far as possible they are recorded in Cook's own words, and are amplified by informative notes. The book is liberally embellished with half tone plates, line drawings and charts, including a large folding reproduction of Cook's Map of New Zealand. In the Australian volume, the records of Cook's travels relating to his epic-making voyage to the east coast, together with his brief visit to Van Diemen's Land on his third voyage, have been gathered together in one volume. Click here to order $65

40489 Rees, Sian The Ship Thieves The Amazing Tale and Unfortunate Life of James Porter - Australian Convict, Pirate and Master Mariner Hodder, Sydney, 2005. Paperback, b&w plates. Minor wear, near fine. Click here to order $16

33329 Scott, James Remarks on a Passage to Botany Bay 1787-1792 A First Fleet Journal Trustees of the Public Library of NSW & Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1963. Hardcover small quarto, 92pp. Prelims foxed, page edges slightly spotted; boards clean and firm, some wear to edges, spine head and tail bumped; dustwrapper creased at edges, some fraying, yellowing. Good in like dustwrapper professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Written by a Sergeant of Marines, James Scott gives a picture of the arrival of the First Fleet and of the early days in Port Jackson, somewhat different from that presented by any of the better known accounts of the period. This personal journal therefore represents a section of the First Fleet's complement that has previously had no published spokesman. Click here to order $60

30143 Stamp, Tom & Cordelia James Cook The Life of Captain Cook Caedmon, Whitby, 1978. Hardcover, b&w illustrations. Endpapers & Page edges spotted. Dustwrapper spotted with some wear at corners. Very good. [Hardcovers with dustwrappers are professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film, where appropriate.] Click here to order $30

34484 Subramanian, Lakshmi Medieval Seafarers of India Roli, New Delhi, 2005. Remainder, paperback, new. The vitality and resiliance of Indian seafaring, attested by both tradition and historical experience, is set against the growing colonial domination that changed the contours of the traditional maritime world. Click here to order $12

51682 Taylor, E G R (ed.) A Regiment For the Sea And Other Writings on Navigation Hakluyt Society, Cambridge, 1963. Hardcover, second series, b&w illustrations. Page edges foxed. Blue card dustwrapper with edge and corner wear, spine and edges browned; small segment missing on head of spine, and some minor chipping; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good otherwise. William Bourne, of Gravesend, by trade a gunner, was a successful writer of a new type of textbook. Neither a scholar nor of gentle birth, both of which were regarded as the prerequisites of authorship in the sixteenth century, when scientific books were expected to appear only in universities and to be read only by those fluent in Latin, Bourne nevertheless produced a whole series of technical manuals, written in English for the artisans and craftsmen of his own class. A Regiment for the Sea, which forms the core of the volume, is perhaps the earliest technical manual written by an Englishman. It is not simply his rules for navigation, for Bourne wrote much as he spoke, so that out of this instruction book for sailors a clear picture of the man himself emerges: serious, reliable, patriotic and with this inborn impulse to pass on his knowledge to others. Click here to order $50

57256 Vause, Jordan U-Boat Ace The Story of Wolfgang Luth. Airlife, Shrewsbury, 1992. Hardcover, 235pp., b&w illustrations. Page edges lightly toned with minor soiling to lower edges. Stapled pamphlet titled Problems of Leadership in a Submarine by Lt. Commander Luth laid in. Dustwrapper creased at edges; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Through the skilful marshalling of facts, anecdotes and speculation, Vause portrays Luth as a man of contradictions: an ardent Nazi ideologue who could bend the rules for a slack sailor, a U-boat ace who could treat survivors of his attacks with clemency but then impetuously gun down other victims in cold blood. Wolfgang Luth was credited with sinking forty seven Allied ships and a submarine, and after sixteen war patrols, he was named the youngest commandant of the German naval academy. From scant archival material, the author was obliged to piece together information from Luth's crewmen and fellow U-boat commanders and in doing so, encapsulates the paradoxes inherent in so many German submarine commanders, men spawned by the Nazi regime yet not entirely of it. Click here to order $45

46036 WARNER, Oliver Fighting Sail, Three Hundred Years of Warfare at Sea Cassell, London, 1979. 4to - over 9" - 12" tall. First Edition, [xii+196pp.] Colour and B&W illustrations. Minor wear, very good in like dustwrapper and protective plastic wrap. This book spans the end of the fifteenth to the early nineteenth century, when the ousting of oared vessels by sail was, in turn, completely revolutionised by the advent of steam. In this romantic, though bloody era, the tactics of sea warfare changed continually as ship design improved; more efficient rigging gave greater speed and manoeuvrability; nautical instruments became more accurate and armament more deadly; copper-sheathed hulls made longer voyages possible; and at last, that age-old scourge of the seafaing man, scurvy, was conquored. Against this background of maritime history, daily life is portrayed in all its glory and squalor. 16 pages in full colour, as well as nearly a hundred b&w illustrations include many scenes of life below decks with all the grumbling, stalwart loyalty and bawdy humour of the ordinary sailor of the day besides great battle paintings made beautiful by the innate grace of the sailing ship. Click here to order $32

51684 Williamson, J A (ed.) The Cabot Voyages and Bristol Discovery Under Henry VII With the Cartography of the Voyages. Hakluyt Society, Cambridge, 1962. Hardcover, second series. B&w illustrations and pull-out maps. Page edges foxed. Blue card dustwrapper with edge and corner wear, spine and edges browned; some minor chipping; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good otherwise. One of the Hakluyt Society's scholarly editions of primary records of voyages, it includes documents from English, Portuguese, and Spanish archives, transcribed or in translation, and from printed sources, relating to the Atlantic voyages out of Bristol; including the voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot. Click here to order $40

47662 WRIGHT, Theon in Collaboration with SUTTON, Ione Ulrich The Voyage of the Herman The dramatic story of the search for the $100 million treasure of Lima. Hawthorn Books, New York, 1966. Hardcover, quarto, 284pp., illustrated. Photographs and documents from the logs and scrapbooks kept by Captain George Sutton during the treasure hunt. Board edges slightly worn. Page edges lightly foxed. Chipped dustwrapper with tarnishing on rear panel, creasing and wear to edges with segments missing on head of spine; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. The men on board the Herman had been searching for a remote South Sea Island atoll for more than two years - the atoll that reputedly held $100,000,000 in treasure. Their quest began when they accepted as absolute truth an amazing tale told by a Captain James Brown, a self-confessed pirate and murderer. Captain Brown revealed that the famed 'lost church treasure of Lima' had been removed from its original burial place on Cocos Island, off the coast of South America, and he gave positive proof of its location. Led by Captain George Sutton of New Rochelle, the adventurers set forth on the Herman. Trouble began immediately with the greed and lust stirred by the gold and silver and the fears and angers of the insanely suspicious Captain Brown. The treachery and deceit of two of the treasure hunters, the smoldering threat of mutiny, a conspiratorial Hawaiian landlady and her exotic young daughter and the seizure of the schooner in Honolulu and Sydney conspire to form an excitingly dramatic narrative that reads like a novel, but which is fully documented. Captain Sutton kept all the records of the voyage with fanatical detail. Ione Ulrich Sutton, the widow of Captain Sutton's son, completed the work of putting the records together along with many of the documents, letters, maps, photographs, and pages from the schooner's log that are included in these pages. Through the imagination and vivid style of author-explorer Theon Wright, all the excitement of this frustrating search and its remarkable conclusion. Click here to order $32