DAMPIER, William (1652-1715). A complete set of Dampier's voyages. London, 1697, 1699, 1703, 1709. ALL FIRST EDITIONS.
A New Voyage round the World. London: Printed for James Knapton, 1697. 5 engraved maps (4 folding).Voyages and Descriptions. Vol. II. In Three Parts. London: Printed for James Knapton, 1699. 4 engraved folding maps.A Voyage to New Holland, &c. in the Year, 1699. London: Printed for James Knapton, 1703. 5 engraved maps (one folding), 10 engraved plates.A Continuation of a Voyage to New-Holland. London: Printed for James Knapton, 1709. 13 engraved maps (one folding), 5 engraved plates.A COMPLETE SET OF FIRST EDITIONS OF DAMPIER'S VOYAGESTogether, 4 volumes, 8vo (185 x 115 mm). (Some headlines shaved, a few maps backed or reinforced.) Early 20th-century half blue calf, marbled boards, spines gilt, top edges gilt (some chipping to spine ends and rubbing to extremities). Dampier, often called the "precursor to Banks and Darwin in his keen observations" and an "indefatigable navigator," was the first English navigator to record and collect natural history, and survived shipwreck, desertion and imprisonment. He made an unprecedented three circumnavigations and also was the first to correctly describe the winds and currents in the Pacific Ocean. His stated aim was discovery, not Spanish gold, in the islands of the East Indies not yet controlled by the Dutch East India Company.Volumes I-II contain his earlier voyages to the West Indies from 1674-76 and his 1681-91 voyages from Virginia and Mexico around the Horn to the Philippines, China and Australia where, in 1688, he made the first English landing on the continent. It was his descriptions of the aborigines at King Sound which probably inspired Swift's "Yahoos" in Gulliver's Travels. Granted a naval commission in 1698 he embarked on a second voyage to Australia in the naval vessel Roebuck, a rotten, badly-provisioned and short-handed ship in which he surveyed the north coast of New Guinea, New Ireland and New Britain, proving them to be separate from Australia, discovered Dampier Strait, and concluded that Australia was not joined to Asia, Africa or America. The third volume, parts I and II describe his voyage to Australia. Borba de Moraes I:243; Cox I pp. 42-43; Hill 419-421; Sabin 18374-18377; Wing D-164 and 165.
