Collection of Voyages. In Four Volumes. Containing I. Captain William

DAMPIER, William. A Collection of Voyages. In Four Volumes. Containing I. Captain William Dampier's Voyages.II. The Voyages of Lionel Wafer.and Davis's Expedition. III. A Voyage Round the World.By W. Funnell.IV. Capt. Cowley's Voyage Round the Globe. V. Capt. Sharp's Journey.VI. Capt. Wood's Voyage.VII. Mr. Roberts's Adventures. London: James and John Knapton, 1729. Four volumes. Thirty-six engraved maps by or after Herman Moll (nineteen folding), twenty-seven engraved plates (four folding). Antique style full panelled calf, spine gilt with raised bands, leather labels. Very good, internally very clean. A solid set of the most complete version of these important voyages. Dampier is generally described as the first Englishman to set foot on the Australian continent. This is first collected edition, and the best textually, of Dampier's voyages. The additional titlepage in the first volume designates this the "7th edition, corrected" of the writings of celebrated British navigator and buccaneer William Dampier. Hill states that the narratives in the second volume are in the fourth edition, those in the third volume are in the third edition, and those in the fourth volume are not designated, although he notes: "Parts II-V of v. 4 are a reprint, with separate title page and paging, of Hacke's A COLLECTION OF ORIGINAL VOYAGES, London, 1699." Dampier's first voyage to the Pacific was in 1680, raiding on the Spanish coast of South America, then crossing the Pacific to the East Indies. Throughout the next two decades he travelled extensively in the Pacific, at various times visiting Tierra del Fuego, the west coasts of South and Central America, Guam, the Philippines, the East Indies, China, the Campeche coast, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. In 1688, Dampier touched on New Holland, or Australia, for the first time, making a survey of the coast near King Sound. In 1698, after the first volume of his voyages had been published and received great acclaim, the Admiralty gave him a commission as a captain in the Royal Navy and command of the Roebuck. With it he undertook another expedition to Australia, the second British expedition to go there and the first to have that destination as its objective. He explored the south coast of New Guinea, discovered New Britain and Dampier Strait, and explored a.…