I Explore Therefore I Am
It is strange then that no attention was paid to the accounts of the great epic voyages by the Private Press movement started by William Morris at the dawn of the twentieth century. Myth and legend were fine subjects, but reality wasn’t on the menu.
‘I think therefore I am’, but we could just as easily say ‘I explore therefore I am’. Since Mankind first emerged in East Africa some 300,000 years ago, there was a continual push, first out of Africa, and then around the globe. We were born to explore, discover new places, establish trade, interchange ideas, always with insatiable curiosity.
It is strange then that no attention was paid to the accounts of the great epic voyages by the Private Press movement started by William Morris at the dawn of the twentieth century. Myth and legend were fine subjects, but reality wasn’t on the menu. At least that was the case until the founding of the Argonaut Press in Southampton Row, London. The aim of the press was to reissue travel books of outstanding merit in a manner worthy of their importance and to this end the volumes were produced as limited editions, typically 975 copies, printed on Japan Vellum and bound in vellum-backed boards with silk headbands and marker. The general editor of the series was the great Sir Richard Burton scholar, N.M. Penzer, and each title had an introduction by an eminent authority.
The first volume to be issued was The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, reprinted from the edition of 1628. It is the account of the first circumnavigation of the globe by an Englishman. The original edition is one of the legendary rarities amongst travel books with only 3 copies appearing at auction in the last 60 or so years, the last making £146,500 pounds in 2014. Thus, the importance of the present edition in making the work available to a wider audience. On its release in 1926 the The Times Literary Supplement and other papers spoke highly of its superb production.
The explorer whose name goes together with Drake is of course Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1928 the Press published his Discoverie of the large and beautiful Empire of Guiana. First published in 1596, the book gives the account of Raleigh’s voyage to what is now Venezuela in 1595. Raleigh’s voyage up the Orinoco River is full of information being reported for the time although today its importance lies largely in it being the first account of the legend of El Dorado in English.
The Itinerary, by Ludovico de Varthema is one of the most remarkable travel books of the Renaissance. It describes the author’s travels from 1502-1508 during which he became the first recorded European to visit Mecca. It is a particularly interesting account as it predates the Ottoman occupation of Arabia. There is also much information on Portuguese discoveries in the East. First published in 1510, no English translation appeared until the Hakluyt Society edition in 1863. The present edition of 1928 uses that text but is a far more handsome publication.
A New Account of the East Indies, 1727, by Alexander Hamilton, was issued in 1930. It is a valuable text as it is one of the earliest accounts of the Indian Ocean in English and has much information on the East Indies. It is also notable for recounting a visit to Muscat. Hamilton was a larger-than-life character with a thrilling narrative telling of fending off Baluchi robbers, treacherous governors and Indian pirates.
As well as these titles, we have other Argonaut Press items in stock. Please contact us for details.
Written by Julian MacKenzie
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