John Dunmore, ed.: The Journal of La Pérouse, 1785-1788 (1994-95)•
Jean François de Galaup de La Pérouse (1741-1788)La Pérouse: Journal, 1785-1788 (1994-95)
[Finally Books - Hospice Bookshop, Birkenhead - 2/4/24]:
The Journal of Jean François de Galaup de La Pérouse, 1785-1788. Ed. John Dunmore. 2 vols. Hakluyt Society: Second Series 179-80. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1994-95.
As usual, we start off with Wikipedia:
The Hakluyt Society is a text publication society, founded in 1846 and based in London, England, which publishes scholarly editions of primary records of historic voyages, travels and other geographical material.It's named after Richard Hakluyt (1553-1616), an English writer who specialised in collecting stories about travel to far-off places. The most famous of his compilations is undoubtedly The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation (1589-1600):
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation made by Sea or Overland to the Remote & Farthest Distant Quarters of the Earth at any time within the compasse of these 1600 Yeares. 1589-1600. Introduction by John Masefield. 1907. 8 vols. Everyman’s Library. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. / New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1926.One reason I bought a copy of this was for the introduction by John Masefield, an author whose works I still find myself collecting some forty years after completing my MA thesis about him.
But mainly it was because it's one of those crucial prose works which seem to define the Elizabethan sensibility: Along with Hakluyt's Voyages (1589-1600), there are other large compendiums such as Foxe's Actes and Monuments, Holinshed's Histories, North's Plutarch, and Florio's Montaigne:
Williamson, G. A., ed. Foxe's Book of Martyrs. ['Actes and Monuments,' 1563]. London: Martin Secker and Warburg Limited, 1965.
Plutarch’s Lives. Trans. Jacques Amyot. 1517. Translated from the French by Sir Thomas North. 1579. The Temple Plutarch. Ed. W. H. D. Rouse. 10 vols. London: J. M. Dent, 1898.
Raphael Holinshed. Chronicles. Introduction & Selection by Michael Wood. 1577 & 1587. London: Folio Society, 2012.
The Essayes of Michael, Lord of Montaigne. Trans. John Florio. 1603. 3 vols. The World’s Classics, 65-67. London: Henry Frowde, 1904.
The Victorian era saw itself as very much in the mould of their own excessively romanticised version of the Eilzabethan age. Great explorers such as Burton, Franklin and Livingstone became celebrities on a level with Ralegh and Drake, their travelogues read eagerly in every home.
What better timing, then, for the foundation of a society devoted to the reprinting of travel journals and narratives of the past - with scholarly introductions and apparatus to establish the validity of the comparison?
The fascinating thing is that this society still endures, nearly two centuries later, with (now) over 300 titles to its credit!
I'm not a member, I hasten to admit, though I've benefitted greatly from some of their publications in the past: particularly the early South American conquest accounts edited and overseen (for the most part) by Sir Clements Markham, Secretary of the society from 1858–87, then President from 1889–1909.
More celebrated, perhaps, for his stubborn advocacy of Captain Scott's Antarctic expeditions, Markham travelled extensively in Peru in the 1850s, and wrote extensively about its history and culture throughout his life.
Whilst working on my PhD thesis in the late 1980s, I found myself greatly indebted to his Hakluyt Society edition of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa's 1572 History of the Incas (2 vols, 1907), as well as Alfred Maudslay's complete 5-volume edition of Bernal Díaz's classic True History of the Conquest of New Spain (1908-1916).
All of which brings me to the book pictured at the head of this post, which I was fortunate enough to find in a Hospice Shop the other day. Pacific exploration is, of course, a topic which fascinates many New Zealanders - but the translator and editor of this particular set of volumes, John Dunmore is also of particular interest to those of us connected with Massey University.
I started there as a tutor in 1991, five years after Dunmore's retirement, but I heard a lot about him, and especially his activities as a publisher at the Dunmore Press (1969–1984) and Heritage Press (1985–2004). He died last year, at the age of 99.
So much is the subject dominated by Captain James Cook and his three classic Pacific voyages between 1768 and 1780, that the contributions of later explorers such as La Pérouse are often overlooked. Not only that, but the stories of French navigators in our region - Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1767–1768) and Jean-François de Surville (1769–1770) prominent among them - are also far less well-known than they should be.
Dunmore made a very thorough attempt to restore the balance. Given that he was bilingual in French and English, he was able to publish extensively on this theme in both languages, not only editions of the journals of each of these explorers, but also accounts of all three of them.
His work in this field certainly deserves to rank with that of John C. Beaglehole, whose groundbreaking editions of Cook's Journals were also published by the Hakluyt Society in the 1950s and 1960s, together with his magisterial biography of the navigator in 1974.
Beaglehole was in fact Dunmore's PhD thesis supervisor at Victoria University of Wellington, which could be seen as bringing the wheel full circle.
But what of La Pérouse himself? I guess, unfortunately, the most notable thing about his very successful voyage is the way it ended. The last time either he or his ships were seen was the day of their departure from the new British colony in New South Wales on 10th March 1788.
What happened to them? Snippets of information came to light, along with a few swords and other fragments, at various times over the next forty years. The best modern reconstruction of what may have happened is more or less as follows:
Both ships [were] wrecked on Vanikoro's reefs, Boussole first. Astrolabe was unloaded and taken apart. A group of men, probably the survivors of Boussole, were massacred by the local inhabitants. According to the islanders, some surviving sailors built a two-masted craft from the wreckage of Astrolabe and left in a westward direction about nine months later, but what happened to them is unknown. Also, two men, one a "chief" and the other his servant, ... remained behind, but had left Vanikoro a few years before Dillon arrived [in 1826].It seems sad that so ambitious a voyage left so little evidence behind. La Pérouse's surviving journals (published in heavily edited form in 1797 and then, in full, in 1985) do something to redress that, though. It's wonderful to be able to encounter him more or less in his own words in Dunmore's painstaking translation.
Books I own are marked in bold:
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First Series:
- 2/101. Mandeville’s Travels / Texts and Translations / By Malcolm Letts, F.S.A. Volume I. 1953 (1950). Pages lxiii, 223 + 2 maps, 1 illustration.
The text of British Library Egerton MS 1982, with an essay on the cosmographical ideas of Mandeville’s day by E. G. R. Taylor. The main pagination of this and the following volume is continuous.
2/102. Mandeville’s Travels … . . Volume II. 1953 (1950). Pages xii, 226-554 + 3 illustrations.The Paris text (French, with translation), the Bodleian text, and extracts from other versions.
- Letts, Malcolm, ed. Mandeville’s Travels: Texts and Translations. 2 vols. Second Series, 101. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1953.
- 2/132. Further Selections from the Tragic History of the Sea / 1559-1565 / Narratives of the Shipwrecks of the Portuguese East Indiamen Aguia and Garça (1559), / São Paulo (1561) and the Misadventures of the Brazil-ship Santo Antonio (1565) / Translated and Edited from the Original Portuguese by C. R. Boxer / Cambridge, 1968 (1967). Pages x, 170 + 4 maps, 11 illustrations.
The narratives of Diogo do Couto, Henrique Dias and Afonso Luis. For a previous selection from the same source, see Second Series 112 above.
- Boxer, C. R., ed. Further Selections from the Tragic History of the Sea, 1559-1565. The Hakluyt Society, Second Series: No. 132. London: Published for the Hakluyt Society by Cambridge University Press, 1968.
- 2/171. English and Irish Settlement on the River Amazon / 1550-1646 / Edited by Joyce Lorimer / 1989. Pages xxvi, 499 + 10 maps.
Documents, many from manuscripts in English, Irish, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese archives.
- Lorimer, Joyce. English and Irish Settlements on the River Amazon 1550-1646. Hakluyt Society, Second Series 171. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1989.
- 2/179. The Journal of Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse / 1785-1788 / Volume I / Translated and edited by John Dunmore / 1994. Pages ccxl, 232 + 8 maps, 3 illustrations.
A translation of the journal, published with abridgements in 1797, in full in 1985. The introduction discusses the background to the voyage and its achievement, despite the final disaster. This volume covers the voyage to Australia, the Pacific coast of North America, and Macao. The main pagination of this and the following volume is continuous.
2/180. The Journal of Jean-François de Galaup de la Pérouse … / Volume II … / 1995. Pages vi, 233-613 + 17 maps, 4 illustrations.The voyage between the Philippines and Kamchatka, then to Australia. The appendices include related correspondence and the muster rolls of the ships.
- The Journal of Jean François de Galaup de La Pérouse, 1785-1788. Ed. John Dunmore. 2 vols. Hakluyt Society: Second Series 179-80. London: The Hakluyt Society, 1994-95.
- 15. Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana. Edited by Joyce Lorimer. 2006, pp. xcvii + 360, 6 plates, 5 maps.
The annotated text of a previously unpublished copy of Ralegh’s fair manuscript draft of the Discoverie of Guiana, with, on facing pages, the subsequent printed version. The Introduction provides a comprehensive historical background to the voyage. Appendixes include numerous previously unpublished letters and correspondences.
- Lorimer, Joyce, ed. Sir Walter Ralegh's Discoverie of Guiana. 1596. The Hakluyt Society: Third Series, No. 15. London: Published by Ashgate for The Hakluyt Society, 2006.
- Extra 34a. The Journals of Captain James Cook on his Voyages of Discovery / The Voyage of the Endeavour 1768-1771 / Edited by J. C. Beaglehole / 1955. Reprinted, with addenda and corrigenda, 1968. Pages cclxxxiv, 684/696 + 20 maps, 25 illustrations.
Admiralty instructions and the journal of the First Voyage, with many appendices.
Extra 34b. The Journals of Captain James Cook … / Charts & Views / Drawn by Cook and his Officers and Reproduced from the Original Manuscripts / edited by R. A. Skelton / 1955, second edition 1969. Pages viii + 58 loose maps, charts, plans, profiles, views and other illustrations.A separate and unnumbered portfolio containing reproductions of charts and views drawn on the three voyages, with a list.
Extra 35. The Journals of Captain James Cook … / The Voyage of the Resolution and Adventure 1772-1775 / … / 1961. Reprinted, with addenda and corrigenda, 1969. Pages clxx, 1021/1028 + 19 maps, 63 illustrations. Half-title gives II as number within the set.Admiralty instructions and the journal of the Second Voyage, with many appendices.
Extra 36a. The Journals of Captain James Cook … / The Voyage of the Resolution and Discovery 1776-1780 / … / Part One / 1967. Pages ccxxiv, 718 + 17 maps, 64 illustrations.Half-title gives III as number within set. Admiralty instructions and the journal of the Third Voyage, with supplementary extracts from journals or logs by James King, Charles Clerke, James Burney, Richard Gilbert, Thomas Edgar.
Extra 36b. The Journals of Captain James Cook … 1776-1780 / Part Two / 1967. Pages viii, 723-1647 + 2 maps, 10 illustrations. Half-title gives III as number within set. Appendices containing the journals of William Anderson and David Samwell; extracts from other journals; rolls of the ships’ companies, and a calendar of documents, 1774-1791.
The main pagination of this and the following volume is continuous. For a separate addendum, see Occasional Booklet 8 below.A separate pamphlet, Cook and the Russians, consisting of six documents translated from Russian sources, edited by J. C. Beaglehole, was published in 1973 as an addendum to this volume.
- The Journals of Captain Cook: Prepared from the Original Manuscripts by J. C. Beaglehole for the Hakluyt Society. 1955-67. Ed. Philip Edwards. Penguin Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1999.
- Extra 37. The Life of Captain James Cook / by J. C. Beaglehole / 1974. Pages xi, 760 + 11 maps, 38 illustrations.
First separately published by A. and C. Black, 1974, then for the Hakluyt Society.
- Beaglehole, J. C. The Life of Captain James Cook. London: Adam & Charles Black Ltd., 1974.
Nos. 1–50 (1847–1873)
Nos. 51–100 (1874–1899)
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Second Series:
Nos. 1–90 (1899–1944)
Nos. 91–190 (1945–2000)
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Third Series:
Nos. 1–41 (1999–2023)
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Extra Series:
Nos. 1–47 (1903–2012)
J. C. Beaglehole, ed. The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, 1768-1771. 2 vols. 1962. The Sir Joseph Banks Memorial. Sydney: The Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales, in association with Angus and Robertson, 1963.
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- category - Travel & Exploration: Exploration
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