DALRYMPLE, Alexander

A Collection of Voyages chiefly in the Southern Atlantick Ocean...

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Printed for the Author, Sold by J. Nourse [and others] London, 1775. Quarto, with three engraved charts; light embrowning to margins of first and final leaves; an excellent large copy (partly uncut) in a modern binding of light sprinkled calf antique, double labels. The only edition: this very rare collection of voyages was published by Dalrymple to prove the existence of a southern land in the Atlantic rather than the Pacific, and to lobby for its colonisation. Dating from shortly after Cook's return in the Endeavour, it promotes colonisation of the southern hemisphere virtually as far as possible from Cook's first voyage discoveries.

It is a complicated book, made up of six different sections, printed for Dalrymple in at least three places - Paris, Edinburgh, and London. Firstly Dalrymple urges the government to colonise the "Isla muy grande y amena"; this is followed by Edmund Halley's "Two Voyages made in 1698, 1699, and 1700", with two charts (the first published account of his important two voyages in the Paramour Pink); Seixas y Lovera's "Geographical Description of Terra Magellanica" (first edition of this text in English); a description of Bouvet des Loziers "Voyage fait aux Terres Australes" in 1738-9, with a chart (this was printed for Dalrymple in Paris); an extract from the journal of Ducloz Guyot who sailed south in the Leon in 1753 (this was printed in Scotland); and finally meteorological details for the Falklands from John McBride's unpublished manuscript journal for 1766-7 held in the Admiralty.

Although some of these pieces had been prepared as early as 1772, Dalrymple had put off publication intending to write a long historical introduction, much as he had done for his better-known work on South Sea voyages. In 1775, however, he left England hurriedly to return to Madras as a member of council, rehabilitated after his earlier clashes with the Madras government and the officers of the East India Company. Some of the pieces were prepared shortly after Cook's return from his first voyage, when Dalrymple must have been smarting again from his failure to be given command of the Endeavour voyage.
Not in the catalogue of the Hill collection.

• AUD 37,500.00 > autres monnaies
• Commande nro.: 205_487

• libraire: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)