The George S. MacManus Co. has issued their Catalogue 431, Travel and Exploration. These books are overwhelmingly from the 19th century and earlier. The greatest number of travels took place in North America or involved Americans, but that is by no means exclusively the case. Captain Cook and others also make their appearances. The great American expeditions of Lewis and Clark, Pike, and Long will all be also found here. For those with wanderlust, and perhaps sorry at missing the time when so much more was still unknown, these books will bring you back to that time. There aren't that many places left now to explore, at least on Earth. Here are few samples from MacManus' travels and explorations.
We begin with one the lesser known titles, though the author certainly lived an amazingly adventurous, and at times frightening, life. His name was ordinary even if his life was not, Thomas W. Smith. His book is A Narrative of the Life, Travels, and Sufferings of Thomas W. Smith: Comprising an Account of his Early Life, Adoption by the Gipsys [sic]; His Travels during Eighteen Voyages to Various Parts of the World, during which he was Five Times Shipwrecked... published in 1844. After his father's death, Smith became an errand boy at age 7 and soon went to sea. That included seven whaling voyages to the South Pacific, while other travels took him to the Atlantic coast of South America, New Zealand, Guam and various Pacific islands, Japan, Africa and Antarctica. Once in Antarctica he was forced to survive on penguin hearts and livers. Three of the shipwrecks were on a desolate island near the Antarctic. He was once taken by pirates. His travels took place from 1816-1832, when the English-born seaman retired to the seafaring town of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He then began studies for the ministry, but poor health and limited financial means prevented him from achieving that dream. Item 76. Priced at $7,500.
This is one of the most important collections of early voyages to the Pacific, particularly for early Australian history. The title is Terra Australis Cognita, or, Voyages to the Terra Australis, or Southern Hemisphere, during the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries, by James Callander, published 1766-1768. It contains 41 accounts of the explorations by Quiros, Tasman, Dampier, Woodes Rogers, Shelvocke, Anson, Magellan, Drake, and many others, some for the first time translated to English. Callander took some of his material from a collection of voyages ten years earlier by Charles de Brosses, but he added some of his own commentary. Quiros had argued for Spanish settlement of Australia, but that was long ago. De Brosses then advocated France take the land and use it for similar purposes as the British later did, a place to send criminals, beggars and the like. Callander advocates the land for Britain, saying it is entitled to it as a great sea power. He too proposed using it as a penal colony. The book contains a map of Australia which depicts all of the continent except the east coast. Capt. James Cook would map that a few years later and in the 1780s, Britain established a penal colony and claimed the land. Item 12. $16,500.
George William Featherstonehaugh was an English born geologist and geographer who came to America in his twenties in 1806. He became involved in agriculture and advocated the building of railroads in America. After years of effort he was able to get approval for building a railroad from Schenectady to Albany, New York. It enabled transportation from the navigable portion of the Mohawk River to the Hudson River. After the death of his wife and two children he returned to England, only to come back to America again. He was appointed the first government geologist, studying the territory of the Louisiana Purchase. He next studied Arkansas, whose people he found most uncouth, and other parts of what was then the West. Eventually, he returned once more to England, where he wrote about what he had seen. This book is Excursion through the Slave States, published in 1844. Featherstonehaugh was highly critical of the slavery he found in the South and Texas. He described the slave's life as similar to that of a horse, “...the horse does his daily task, eats his changeless provender, and at night is driven to his stable to be shut in, until drawn forth at the earliest dawn to go through the same unpitied routine until he dies. This is the history of the slave in Texas, differing in nothing from that of a horse...” Item 22. $1,500.
Not all explorers get to write the account of their final journey. James Cook did not write the account of his third voyage, having been killed by natives in Hawaii before making it home. Robert Falcon Scott could not write about his journey to the South Pole as terrible weather prevented his safe return. Robert Cavelier de La Salle, the greatest French explorer of America, was another such person. He had previously explored the Great Lakes area and parts to the north. His final journey took him south. He traveled down the Mississippi River, ostensibly to set up base at its mouth. He missed the mark and ended up way to the west, in what is now Texas. That's quite a miss and it appears France actually wanted him to establish a settlement in Texas so as to seize some of the land then claimed by Spain. He was promised reinforcements, but they never arrived. After two years in Texas, without cattle, oil wells, or air conditioning, La Salle's men seriously tired of Texas. One of them killed him. The unenviable job of taking over for La Salle fell to Henri Joutel. He led some the the men back to the Mississippi, and then all the way back up the river to rescue. It was then up to Joutel to write what is regarded as the best account of La Salle's final journey. The title is A Journal of the Last Voyage perform'd by Monsr. de La Sale, to the Gulph of Mexico, to find out the mouth of the Missipi River, published in 1714. The spelling of La Salle's name with one less “l” and Mississippi without half of its letters is Joutel's spelling, not mine. Item 88. $13,000.
The most notable of all inland explorations of America is that of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. They were sent by Thomas Jefferson into what was then the great unknown West, up the Missouri River to find out what was in the vast territory purchased from France. They hoped to find a water route to the Pacific (they did not since such a route does not exist). They traversed 8,000 miles of wilderness over 28 months. One place never associated with Lewis and Clark is Dublin, but this copy is from the first Dublin edition. A common alternative to the American first edition is that of London, but the 1817 Dublin is less common. It is more true to the Philadelphia first edition, except the type is larger and clearer, and like the Philadelphia but unlike the London edition, it includes the biography of Lewis written by Thomas Jefferson. It also includes an additional plate not found in the first edition, an illustration of the principal cascades on the Missouri River. The title is History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the Sources of the Missouri, Thence across the Rocky Mountains and down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. Item 45. $50,000.
The George S. MacManus Co. may be reached at 610-520-7273 or books@macmanus-rarebooks.com. Their website is www.macmanus-rarebooks.com.
