lamdha books -
Catalogue of books on exploration

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214107 Allen, Benedict (ed.) The Faber Book of Exploration An Anthology of Worlds Revealed by Explorers through the Ages Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 2002. Octavo; hardcover; 800pp. Mild wear; a little shaken; text block and page edges toned and top edge dusted. Dustwrapper. Very good. What does it feel like to walk off the edge of a map? To emerge dazed, dying yet triumphant, from the Amazon? To tread upon the moon, stand on the roof of the world, or crawl through the blackness of a deep cave? Benedict Allen's anthology of human exploration presents the words of those who, through the centuries, have set off into the "unknown" and returned - sometimes half-dead - to bring this "unknown" back to their people. This volume brings together Vikings and cosmonauts, conquistadors and botanists. Such an unlikely array of travelling companions, placed side by side in their chosen terrain - be it desert, mountain or moon - should make for a rich compendium that helps us to understand and appreciate what kind of attributes make a true "explorer". Click here to order $30

93980 Andrews, Kenneth R. English Privateering Voyages to the West Indies 1588-95: Hakluyt Society Cambridge University Press, 1956. Hardcover, octavo; blue cloth boards with gilt spine titling, embossed edges and upper board gilt insignia; 421pp., monochrome illustrations and fold out map. Owner's name and compliments sticker from Cambridge University pasted on endpaper. Minor wear; a few scattered spots on early pages; lightly browned text block edges with spotting. Blue card dustwrapper, foxed, with browning along spine and a few small chips at edges. Very good and now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Privateering was a form of legal private warfare at sea in which individuals who possessed suitable ships took the opportunity offered by a war to plunder enemy commerce. In this study of privateering during the Elizabethan war with Spain, which was originally published in 1966, Dr Andrews shows that it was closely connected with trade, in particular having a stimulating effect on oceanic commerce and that it was at the time the main form of English maritime warfare. Dr Andrews begins with an account of how privateering became legal and how it was organised. He then examines the various types of venture, describing the sort of people who took part and showing how profitable it was for some, particularly the bigger merchants and the professional seamen. Two contemporary narratives are included. Finally, Dr Andrews studies the role privateering played in overseas expansion. Click here to order $45

202966 Cook, Capt. James (G. Kearsley, ed.) An Abridgement of Captain Cook's Last Voyage Performed in the Years 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, and 1780, for making discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere by Order of His Majesty; Extracted from the Quarto Edition in Three Volumes. G. Kearsley, London, 1787. Octavo; hardcover, half-bound in calf with marbled boards, gilt spine titles on a red morocco label between five raised bands decorated in gilt; 488pp. [2 Blank + xxivpp. + 442pp. + 16pp. (Index) + 2pp. of adverts + 2 Blank], on laid paper with marbled edges, with a folding engraved frontispiece ("The Death of Cook"), a folding chart and five engraved plates. Moderate wear; boards, edges and joints well rubbed; crackling to the leather on the spine; text block top edges dusted; previous owner's ink inscription to the front pastedown and title page; mild offset throughout; folding plates backed with linen. Very good. The British Admiralty claimed the rights to publish any material which had been generated on its ships during its missions of exploration and were generally scrupulous about depriving the seamen on board of their journals whenever they returned to port. The publication of Cooks' narrative of his Third Voyage - notoriously cut short by his death in Hawaii - was seen as a lucrative means of recouping monies spent upon the enterprise; an eager public, keen to read of his exploits, were not about to prove them wrong. Not everybody could afford to pay the sums expected to purchase the work however, and few wanted to deal with its quarto format with accompanying maps, so the enterprising George Kearsley (publisher) saw his way clear to producing an abridged smaller format version which suited the market admirably. The Admiralty were not so keen to see funds diverted away from them like this and entered into a battle of words with the canny publisher. As a result, the Preface to the volume is both a long apology and an explanation as to Kearsley's altruistic reasons for publishing it. Possibly due to the acrimony surrounding the publication, the main bibliographer of works by and about Cook, Beddie, overlooked the second edition in his listings (this is the fourth). The book is of interest also for the fact that it reproduces the Royal Society Medal presented to Cook post-mortem - designed by Pingo and engraved here by Trotter - and goes into a fair amount of detail about this award. (See: Beddie 1547; Forbes, "Hawaiian National Bibliography", 68). This copy of the work was previously owned by Sir Joseph Palmer Abbott, the distinguished Australian politician and solicitor. Click here to order $1800

63240 d'Urville, Jules S-C Dumont (Helen Rosenman, trans. & ed.) An Account in Two Volumes of Two Voyages to the South Seas by Jules S-C Dumont D'Urville... Volume 1: "Astrolabe" 1826-1829; Volume 2: "Astrolabe" and "Zelee" 1837-1840 Melbourne University Press, Carlton Vic., 1987. Two volumes: quarto; hardcover, with gilt spine titles on scarlet labels; 634pp. [311pp. + 323pp.] with two monochrome frontispieces, 44 monochrome and colour plates and many other illustrations. Very minor wear; previous owner's name plate to the upper corner of the front pastedowns of both volumes. No dustwrappers as issued. Owner's bookplate on front endpaper; else near fine in like slipcase. Still retains paper obi. Rear-Admiral Dumont d'Urville was a brilliant sailor who made two great scientific and exploratory voyages to the Pacific and the Antarctic. The first, 1826-29 solved the 40 year old mystery of the disappearance of La Perouse. The coup of the second voyage, 1837-40 was d'Urville's discovery, ahead of the American Wilkes and the British Ross expeditions, that Antarctica was a continent. He was twice in New Zealand. In 1840 to his chagrin, when he was in the South Island, Britain proclaimed sovereignty over both islands to thwart French plans to settle the Banks Peninsula. D'Urville possessed enormous vitality, curiosity, perseverance and scepticism. His own and his officers' shrewd observations on the many places visited present a sad and often angry commentary on the devastation being wreaked on the ancient but fragile cultures and environments of Oceania. Click here to order $85

85203 Eyre, Edward John Reports of the Expedition to King George's Sound 1841 and the Death of Baxter - limited edition Nag's Head Press, Sullivan's Cove TAS, 1983. Octavo; hardcover, with titles on a cream label tipped-on to the upper board; 48pp., hand-set and printed. Minor wear. Dustwrapper protected by non-adhesive archival film with white paper backing. Near fine. Edward John Eyre is a contentious figure in Australian history, almost as chequered as William Bligh. Misfortune and suspicion dogged his career which was worldwide. This report concerns the details of an exploratory voyage to King George Sound in Western Australia starting at Adelaide and focusses particularly upon an incident when a man named Baxter was murdered at one of the party's campsites. Eyre claimed that two indigenous men, in league with one of the expedition's trackers, killed Baxter in order to steal guns; the Aboriginal tracker reported that it was Eyre who killed Baxter in a fit of rage at his bouts of drunkenness. Whatever the real circumstances, Eyre's reputation has been clouded ever since. This is his account of the story, published in a limited, initialled edition of 155 copies; the present copy being No.10. Click here to order $50

30841 Hakluyt, Richard (David B. and Alison M. Quinn, eds.) Discourse Concerning Western Planting Hakluyt Society, Cambridge UK, 1993. Folio; hardcover, with gilt spine-titling and upper board decoration; 229pp., with many photographic monochrome illustrations. Moderate wear to dustwrapper: some stains on the front panel and some creasing to the rear; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Otherwise near fine. A facsimile and transcription of the most elaborate and important prospectus for English colonisation in North America to have been written in the sixteenth century. Full title: 'A Particuler Discourse Concerninge the Greate Necessitie and Manifolde Commodyties that are like to Growe to this Realme of Englande by the Westerne Discoueries Lately Attempted'. It is the only extended prose work in English of Richard Hakluyt, the younger [1552-1616]. It was unknown to scholars until its appearance in print in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1877. It was a confidential state paper presented to Queen Elizabeth I on 3 October 1584 and the present text is the only one of the very few copies made in 1585 to have survived. It was made known to Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Francis Walsingham, and not more than three other persons in the royal administration. The book from which this facsimile was made is now in the possession of the New York Public Library. It may or may not have been the copy presented to Sir Francis Walsingham. Hakluyt presented his wide-ranging plans in eloquent and lucid form, carefully constructed so as to appeal to the Queen's fervent nationalism and prejudices. A remarkable document. Click here to order $130

92187 Jeal, Tim Explorers of the Nile The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure Faber and Faber Ltd., London, 2011. Hardcover, octavo; green boards with gilt spine titling, brown endpapers; 510pp., monochrome and colour plates. Binding very slightly rolled; mild toning and spotting to text block edges. Very good to near fine in like dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. "The story of the search for the elusive Nile source is well known and, you might think, amply covered - not least by Alan Moorehead's hugely influential The White Nile. And yet, as Tim Jeal is quick to assert, there has been no attempt to examine in depth the array of published and unpublished material that has appeared since The White Nile's publication in 1960, notably Quentin Keynes's extensive collection, released after his death in 2003. There have been biographies of the seven principal players - Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, Samuel and Florence Baker, Captain Grant, Stanley and Livingstone - the latter two subjects of Jeal himself. But while recent years have seen Christopher Ondaatje's examination of the physical terrain, Journey to the Source of the Nile, and Guy Yeoman's posthumous The Quest for the Secret Nile, a clarification of the geography of the source complex, a 'return to the Victorian Nile story', as Jeal says, 'seems long overdue'. Jeal settles to his task with accustomed diligence. Burton is further exposed as duplicitous, forever seeking how Africa might be best worked into his stage. Admirers of the brilliant Orientalist will be disappointed to learn that for 11 months, his leadership of the first exploration of the Nile source complex was conducted not by him steadfastly on foot, as we have been rather led to believe, but flat on his back, barely conscious and carried in a litter by porters. We also learn much that is new about his hapless companion Speke, referred to pointedly by Burton as his 'subordinate'. He emerges as a better geographer than we have supposed, with a perennial interest in first-hand observation rather than Arab hearsay. That he, not Burton, was the discoverer of a major Nile source we have long known, but not until now did we know the extent of his superior's shenanigans to belittle and thwart him. Jeal, unlike Burton, marches on briskly, adjusting the reputations of each protagonist. We learn that Florence Baker proved an admirable asset, loading weaponry under fire, and so on through to Livingstone (less of the saint that Moorehead portrayed) and Stanley (less of a villain), whose travels closed the debate - and prepared the 'Dark Continent' for colonisation. This engrossing book is a great feat, important not only for shedding fresh light on a tale of Victorian endeavour and pride but also for reminding us of the far-reaching consequences of this European intrusion into the heart of African affairs." - Benedict Allen Click here to order $28

202761 Landor, A. Henry Savage In the Forbidden Land An account of a journey in Tibet, capture by the Tibetan authorities, imprisonment, torture, and ultimate release; also, various official documents, including the enquiry and report by J. Larkin, Esq., appointed by the Government of India. William Heinemann Ltd. London, 1899. Second edition: octavo; hardcover, full decorated cloth with gilt spine titles; 508pp. (+ 32pp. of adverts), untrimmed, with a monochrome portrait frontispiece (plus tissue guard), many illustrations likewise, and a folding map. Moderate wear; somewhat cocked; spine extremities softened; boards mildly rubbed and edgeworn with some minor marks; text block edges toned and top edge dusted; offset to the preliminaries; top joint cracked (still strong); previous owner's bookplate to the front pastedown; previous owner's ink inscription to the flyleaf; map professionally repaired. No dustwrapper. Very good. Laid in: a sales invoice. "In this book I have set down the record of a journey in Tibet undertaken by me during the spring, summer and autumn of 1897. It is illustrated partly from my photographs and partly from sketches made by me on the spot. Only as regards the torture scenes have I had to draw from memory, but it will be easily conceded that their impression must be vivid enough with me..." (from the author's Preface). Click here to order $120

215383 Landsborough, William (Introduction by Valmai Hankel) Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria In Search of Burke & Wills Friends of the State Library of South Australia, Adelaide SA, 2000. Facsimile reprint: octavo; hardcover, full cloth decorated in blind with gilt spine-titling, with a folding map in a pocket to the rear pastedown; 103pp., with a monochrome portrait frontispiece. Minor wear. No dustwrapper as issued. Near fine. "Everyone has heard of the explorers Burke and Wills, who died when attempting to cross the Australian continent in 1861, but few will know of William Landsborough, a quiet unassuming man who in the middle of the 19th century explored and opened up vast areas of land in north-eastern Australia to settlement and farming. He was considered such a good bushman and explorer that he was chosen to lead one of the four search parties sent out to look for Burke and Wills in 1861. In the process of this search he became the first man to cross Australia from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Melbourne. Adding even more interest to this already fascinating story, is the account of William's boat trip north to the Gulf of Carpentaria to commence the search, during which he survived shipwreck and mutiny on one of the Barrier Reef islands. In his day, Landsborough's exploits were feted but now he is largely unknown, ironically perhaps because he was such a capable bushman and explorer that he lived to tell the tale." Click here to order $80

89199 le Maire, Jacob (Alexander Dalrymple, trans.; Introduction by Edward Duyker) Mirror of the Australian Navigation - Australian National Maritime series, No. 5. Australian National Maritime Museum/Hordern House, Potts Point NSW, 1999. Quarto; hardcover; quarter-bound by hand in alum-tawed goat leather with marbled boards; 196pp., on cream stock, 15 colour illustrations. Very minor wear. Near fine. A facsimile of the "Spieghel der Australische Navigatie, Being an Account of the Voyage of Jacob LeMaire and William Schouten in 1615-1616", published in Amsterdam in 1622 with an introductory essay by Edward Duyker and English text by Alexander Dalrymple. Le Maire, a wealthy Dutch merchant, established The Australian Company ("Australische of Zuid Compagnie") to break the monopoly of the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC), find the presumed fabulously wealthy Terra Australis, and at the same time find an alternative route via the Southern tip of South America to the East Indies, previously controlled by the Portuguese until the advent of the VOC. Limited edition of 900 copies. Click here to order $100

51678 Lockhart, Donald (trans.), M.G. da Costa (ed.) (Introduction & Notes by C.F. Beckingham) The Itinerario of Jeronimo Lobo Hakluyt Society, Cambridge, UK, 1984. Second series: octavo, hardcover, with gilt spine title and upper board decoration; 417pp. Previous owner's name on endpaper. Lightly scuffed and faded dustwrapper with edge and corner wear; some tarnishing along edges and corners; corners slightly bumped; professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Jeronimo Lobo was the last survivor of the small band of Jesuit Fathers who tried, with a measure of success, to reconcile Ethiopia to the Church of Rome. His life was long and adventurous. His account of his travels was not printed during his lifetime. A French translation appeared in 1728 and this was translated into English by Dr Johnson and published in 1735. It was generally supposed that the Portuguese original had been destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 but a draft of the itinerario was discovered by M G da Costa in the Public Library of Braga. He has shown that the manuscript had almost as many vicissitudes as its author. Click here to order $25

215382 McDouall Stuart, John Explorations Across the Continent of Australia, with Charts, 1861-62 Friends of the State Library of South Australia, Adelaide SA, 1996. Facsimile reprint: octavo; hardcover, full cloth decorated in blind with gilt spine-titling; 103pp., with a folding chart. Minor wear. No dustwrapper as issued. Near fine. Stuart and his team left Adelaide in 1859, returning four years later after having crossed the continent from south to the north and back. Their travels helped to reveal the real nature of Australia's red heart, and yet their efforts were all but eclipsed by the tragic failure that was the Burke and Wills Expedition which set out into oblivion during the time that Stuart and his men were away. Stuart was not well-known or respected before his achievements and little concrete is known of him; this facsimile reprint of his journal helps clarify the smokey image we have of the "Napoleon of Explorers" as he was known, and brings him back to our attention. Click here to order $80

78475 Maitland, Alexander Wilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer Overlook Press, New York, 2011. Octavo; hardcover; 528pp., monochrome plates. Dustwrapper. Remainder. New. Wilfred Thesiger, the last of the great gentlemen explorer-adventurers, journeyed for sixty years in some of the remotest, most dangerous places on earth, from the mountains of western Asia to the marshes of Iraq. Alexander Maitland writes on every aspect of Thesiger's life and travels, including his wartime experiences, incorporating dramatic personal accounts; his philosophy as a hunter and conservationist; his family influences; his friendships with Arabs and Africans among whom he lived; his writing and photography, and his now acknowledged homosexuality. This is a compelling portrait of an engaging and complicated man - compassionate, determined, egocentric, fiercely resilient, yet surprisingly vulnerable - a great explorer of inner depth and complexity. Click here to order $24

96860 Perkins, John, with The American Museum of Natural History To the Ends of the Earth Four Expeditions to the Arctic, the Congo, the Gobi, and Siberia Pantheon Books/Random House Inc., New York NY, 1981. Landscape quarto; hardcover, with gilt spine and upper board titles; 184pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; some toning and light spotting to the text block edges. Dustwrapper is rubbed and edgeworn with a few small tears; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. "To the Ends of the Earth" by John Perkins is more than a book, it is also a poem. Every page is lucid and concise. There is no pretension in the way this book is written. The sole purpose of the book is to inform and enlighten. The magic of this book lies in the complexity of human nature and the simplicity of what we all are searching for. "To the Ends of the Earth" is about life in the raw, as it was for all of our ancestors and still is for some. Mr. Perkins has collected the photographs, from the Archives of the Museum of Natural History in New York, taken by the explorers of the Arctic, Congo, Gobi, and Siberia. Therefore, each page of text is accompanied by a photograph that serves as a window into the heart of the jungle/desert/tundra of the most untamed areas of the world. When reading this book one is transported to a different time and place, and one feels part of something real. Although it is about simple people, this book questions the fundaments of the human struggle on a cosmic level, so frequently overlooked in the world we live in today. Click here to order $28

200055 Scott, Captain R.F., & Dr. E.A. Wilson (Leonard Huxley, ed.; Preface by Sir Clements R. Markham) Scott's Last Expedition - Two Volumes. Vol I. being the Journals of Captain R.F. Scott, R.N., C.V.O. Vol II. being the Reports of the Journeys and the Scientific Work undertaken by Dr. E.A. Wilson and the Surviving Members of the Expedition. Smith Elder & Co. Ltd., London, 1913. First edition: two volumes, octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine and upper board titles and rules and blind rules to the upper boards; 1,209pp. [xxvipp. + 633pp. + xvipp. + 534pp.], untrimmed, top edges gilt, with two monochrome portrait frontispieces, 2 folding panoramas, 3 double-page plates and 181 plates likewise, plus 8 maps (6 folding and 1 in colour), 18 colour plates and 2 black-and-white illustrations. Moderate wear; both volumes shaken; spine extremities softened; spine of Volume I cracked; spines sunned with some chipping to Volume I; boards lightly rubbed with some mild sunning; text block edges spotted; mild offset to the endpapers; previous owner's name in ink to the flyleaves. No dustwrappers. Very good. "Scott's legacy has been buffered to and fro like the Antarctic wind over the past 100 years. In the aftermath of his death, which was not known about back home for almost another year, he was hailed as a hero by a declining Empire desperately in need of one. In later years, he has been traduced as an incompetent, indecisive amateur. Somewhere between the two, a middle ground can be found, emphasising his team's scientific discoveries and the extreme conditions they faced, without either condemning or cheerleading. Regardless, it is difficult not to feel a small Edwardian lump rising at the back of your throat when you read one of the final diary entries: 'Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale.'" - Iain Hollingshead Click here to order $600

35769 Severin, Timothy The Oriental Adventure Explorers of the East Angus & Robertson Publishers Pty. Ltd., Sydney NSW, 1978. Quarto; hardcover, with silver-gilt spine-titling; 240pp., with many monochrome and colour illustrations. Minor wear; some minimal foxing. Price-clipped dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. A fascinating account of the procession of tenacious travellers who penetrated into Asia between the Thirteenth and early Twentieth Centuries to investigate the rumours of the fabulous East. Click here to order $22

87003 Stisted, Georgiana M. The True Life of Capt. Sir Richard F. Burton Written by his niece...with the authority and approval of the Burton family H.S. Nichols, London, 1896. Octavo; hardcover with gilt spine titles; 419pp. with a portrait frontispiece (with tissue guard). Somewhat rolled; lower joint cracked (but strong); corners bumped and boards rubbed; mild offset to the endpapers; text block edges toned; "Rough Advance Copy" pencilled onto the title page. Lacks dustwrapper. Very good. Sir Richard Francis Burton led a colourful life and achieved many great accomplishments. His writings and revelations earned him a knighthood, but his reputation and his Byronic tendency to self-confabulation meant that his rise through both the Army and the Foreign Office were seriously curtailed. Scandal dogged Burton throughout his life, particularly focussed on his sexual writings and (often his own) intimations that his carnal explorations of the East had been as colourful as his cartographic and ethnographic ones. Consequently, biographical material of his life has been questioned and condemned, leading to this overview of his life, penned by his niece with the sanctioning of the Burton clan, an obvious play for an authoritative perspective. Nevertheless, the fact that Burton's wife Isabel burnt most of his papers and manuscripts after his death, at the behest of his spirit, means that there will always be a question hanging over Burton's reported accomplishments, despite the source. This is a proof copy of Stisted's biography of her uncle, circulated for review. Click here to order $45