A Collection of Original Voyages :

Containing I. Capt. Cowley’s voyage round the globe. II. Captain Sharp’s journey over the Isthmus of Darien, and expedition into the South seas, written by himself. III. Capt. Wood’s voyage thro’ the Streights of Magellan. IV. Mr. Roberts’s adventures among the corsairs of the Levant; his account of their way of living; description of the Archipelago islands, taking of Scio, &c / Illustrated with several maps and draughts. Published by Capt. William Hacke. London : Printed for James Knapton, at the Crown in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1699. Octavo (200 x 130 mm), early calf rebacked, upper board with faint ownership signature of ‘Robert Studden, RN, 1844′; endpapers replaced, front pastedown with bookplate of maritime adventurer Hugh Craggs; title-page with Studden’s boldly written signature (also dated 1844); pp. [16], 45, [1 blank], 1-16 and 33-100, 1-53, [3 advertisements]; complete with the folding world map engraved by Herman Moll showing Cowley’s track across the Pacific, 5 folding charts and plans, 1 plate of coastal profiles, and 2 woodcuts in the text; light spotting and browning, a very good example.

Rare first edition of one of the most celebrated collections of accounts of the exploits of English buccaneers.

William Hacke (or Hack) was a London map and chart maker who had sailed with the notorious buccaneer Bartholomew Sharpe on his expedition along the coasts of Spanish South America in 1679-82. Here he presents four buccaneer and pirate accounts: those of Cowley, Sharpe (printed for the first time) and Wood, describing their voyages to the South Seas; and that of Roberts in the Levant and the Aegean. From a geographical standpoint, Cowley’s account is perhaps the most significant, as during his voyage he managed to sail further south than any navigator before him. (He was also the first to name several of the islands in the Galapagos, and a folding chart of the archipelago is included in his account). At the rear of the volume are three pages of advertisements for other works printed by Knapton, which include voyage accounts of Dampier and the Central American account of the buccaneer surgeon Lionel Wafer.

The fact that this particular copy once belonged to English seaman Hugh Craggs means that it has an eerily poetic association with the Galapagos Islands: in 2018, Craggs’ message in a bottle dated 1924 made the headlines when it was discovered on Floreana Island in the Galapagos!

Wing H168; Hill 741; Sabin 29473