EPITOME OF THE ART OF NAVIGATION: or, A Short, Easey and Methodical Way to Become a Compleat Navigator. . .

Atkinson, James.

Published by Wm Mount and Thomas Page: London, 1744

About this Item

10 folding plates (a couple have parts colored), 7.5 x 4.5, full leather, 448 pp, covers detached and sewn on with thick twine, half of leather on spine and maybe 2/3 of front cover leather gone, a very rough and misused book, bottom 1/3 portion of front fly missing, some pp torn, colored parts of illust burned or burned through, contents stained and toned and spotted and very loose, half on plate 10 missing, otherwise complete (believe it or not!). But with many interesting annotations by one Caleb Sands, who begins on the front fly: "Caleb Sands His Book Bought December the 10 Day 1747 Price 11 shillings sixpence of New York currency." On the half title: "Caleb Sands His Book Dated Desember 26th 1749 on board the Brig Wm & Mary in the harbor Cape Franceway." On the verso of the title page he gives his sailing history (naming the ships he sailed: Brig Wm & Mary, the Sibil, and Sloop Ann), sailing across the Atlantic 17,000 miles by the time he was 26; he gives page numbers in this book in which he relates stories about his adventures in marginal ink notes: many storms, getting chased and caught by "Priviteer" (p 227), a "sore and sorifil voige" in which only four men had to take the ship from Hondorus to New York, pumping "near half the time" (p314), seeing a "shirk" [shark] 15 feet long (p 425), etc. Great first-person account of a US Colonial sailor.

Seller Inventory # 98-0424

Bibliographic Details

• Title: EPITOME OF THE ART OF NAVIGATION: or, A Short, Easey and Methodical Way to Become a Compleat Navigator. . .
• Publisher: Wm Mount and Thomas Page: London
• Publication Date: 1744
• Binding: Hardcover
• Seller catalogs:
  • TRANSPORTATION