A Buccaneering classic.
1726. Item #86
Rogers, Woodes. A Cruising Voyage Round the World: First to the South-Sea, thence to the East-Indies, and Homewards by the Cape of Good Hope. Begun in 1708, and Finish’d in 1711. Containing a Journal of all the remarkable Transactions, particularly of the Taking of Puna and Guiaquil, of the Acapulco Ship, and other Prizes; An Account of Alexander Selkirk’s living alone four years and four months in an Island, &c. London: Bernard Lintot, 1726. Second Edition, Corrected [actually the Fourth Edition, per Hill].
8vo. Complete with five folding maps, including Herman Moll’s celebrated double-hemisphere world map showing the track of the Duke and Dutchess, and two folding plates depicting a young alligator and a young crocodile “drawn from the life” in London. Contemporary mottled calf, sympathetically rebacked in style preserving the original red morocco spine label; corners rubbed, a few expert repairs. A clean, wide-margined copy, with minor flaws only. With the armorial bookplate of Ormathwaite.
A buccaneering classic. Rogers’s account is one of the great circumnavigation narratives, chronicling a privateering expedition commissioned out of Bristol with William Dampier as pilot. It includes the dramatic rescue of Alexander Selkirk on Juan Fernández Island—an episode immortalized in literature as the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. The narrative proceeds along the coasts of Brazil and South America, through California, and across the Pacific to Asia, climaxing in the capture of the Manila galleon at Puerto Seguro in 1709.
Hill (258) calls this work “a buccaneering classic,” noting its mixture of nautical detail, prize-taking, ethnographic description, and humor. Cox observes that “with a mongrel crew, and with officers often mutinous, good order and discipline were maintained throughout.” The present edition is of particular interest for its additional natural history engravings of the crocodile and alligator, absent from earlier printings.
A handsome copy of a landmark voyage narrative that bridges the worlds of piracy, exploration, and literature.
Price: $2,750.00