The P. R. Sandwell Collection of Pacific and Arctic Voyages. [ Christie's, auction catalogue, sale date: 21 September, 2005 ]

Christie's, London, auction catalogue for the sale held on 21st September, 2005. Laminated illustrated wrappers, 4to,. 121 pp, plates, ills. 118 lots. The sale comprised: Early Voyages to the Pacific Lots 1-28; The Golden Age of Pacific Exploration Lots 29-87; Voyages to the Arctic Lots 88-118. From the introduction: "During a four-year stay in Tasmania in the early 1940s, my father Dick Sandwell sailed with an old yachting friend who had a keen interest in maritime history. Their voyages often took them to places explored by Cook, D'Entrecasteaux, Bligh and many others. Soon after returning to his home in Vancouver, British Columbia, he began to follow the tracks of such other 18th-century English and French navigators as Dixon, Meares, Vancouver and La Perouse. He began to collect the journals of those early seamen, beginning with Anson's Voyage Round the World (1740-44)… At first the collection had to do mainly with voyages in the South Pacific. Those about the North Pacific and the adjoining Arctic waters soon followed. As a result of participation in a ministerial tour of the Canadian Arctic in 1965, and a Canadian research mission to Siberia, an earlier interest in Russian voyages was rekindled. Thus names such as Gmelin, Krusenstern and Kotzebue began to appear. Consequently, the collection is more properly described as one of "Voyages of exploration and discovery in the Pacific and Arctic, principally in the 18th and 19th centuries'. Near Fine. Printout of prices realized laid in.