'Virtual Voyages' is a fascinating account of the European discovery of the elusive 'great south land' told through the literature of 'imaginary voyages'. Written at the height of the era of European maritime exploration, these bizarre and captivating tales, with their wildly imaginative visions of antipodean inversion and strangeness, reveal a hidden history of attitudes to colonization. By exposing the relationship between myth and reality in the antipodes, this book casts new light on the power of fiction to influence history. In the post-colonial studies field, books about travel writing and empire have tended to focus on the high period of nineteenth-century imperialism and on the colonial settings of Africa and India. This book offers a fresh perspective by focussing on the eighteenth century, and referring to the geographical region of Australia and the Pacific, which has had far less attention. The book also breaks new ground by being the first to approach the genre of the imaginary voyage from a post-colonial perspective. In addition to the new insights into European colonialism that it offers, the book illustrates many broader themes in eighteenth-century history and thought. These include connections between the rise of science and modern imperialism, the development of narrative history and fiction and the influence of romanticism, the evolution of the early novel in Britain and France, and the role of mythology in the development of national identity.

Excerpt from Sea-Life Sixty Years Ago: A Record of Adventures Which Led Up to the Discovery of the Relics of the Long-Missing Expedition Commanded by the Comte De La Perouse Of late years, the memory of many men who distinguished themselves in various ways during their lives has been revived on the centenary of their birth or death. Just a hundred years have now elapsed since the departure of the most celebrated of French navigators on a voyage of discovery in the South Seas, from which he never returned. In the follow ing pages will be found a record of the remarkable chain of adventures (with the latter part of which the writer was personally associated) that ultimately led to a thorough clearing up of the mystery which had so long shrouded the fate of this French expedi tion commanded by the Comte de la Perouse. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This comprehensive, annotated, multivolume bibliography is a record of all printed works touching on some aspect of the political, religious, cultural, or social history of the Hawaiian Islands-from the first printed notice mentioning the Islands (in a German periodical of January 1780) to the beginning of the twentieth century, when the Islands ceased to be a separate political entity. Volume I covers the period from 1780 to 1830, when exploratory voyages to the northern Pacific had largely concluded and the arrival of improved printing equipment in the Islands resulted in a substantial increase in the number of works printed by the Mission Press in Honolulu. In addition to books and pamphlets, the bibliography includes newspaper and periodical accounts and single sheet publications such as broadsides, circulars, playbills, and handbills because they often contain the only eyewitness or contemporary description of an important event or individual. Entries pertaining to Captain Cook's Third Voyage dominate the first twenty years of the bibliography. They reflect the profound impact of the voyage on both the Hawaiian culture and on nineteenth-century European thought. Extensive annotations provide a brief summary of approximately 760 published works in the first volume of the bibliography. All known editions of each work are listed, together with the exact title, date of publication, size of the volume, collation of pages, number and type of plates and maps, references, and location of copies. The bibliography will be invaluable to scholars, librarians, rare book sellers, and book collectors within the field of Hawaiiana.

We can well understand that a lad whose head was full of thoughts of voyaging and adventures, was not, as a schoolboy, very tame and easy to manage. He is described as having been ardent, impetuous, and rather stubborn. But there is more than one kind of stubbornness. There is the stupid stubbornness of the mule, and the fixed, firm will of the intelligent being. -from "Chapter I: Family, Youth and Influences" The disappearance of Jean-Francois de Galaup, Comte de Laprouse, on his 18th-century attempt to circle the globe was a grand nautical mystery for almost 40 years. In this bittersweet 1912 biography, Ernest Scott examines the short, adventurous life of the forgotten navigator-with his voyage related partly through Laprouse's own letters and reports that made it home to France. We share his bemusement at the unstable canoes of the native South Pacific Islanders and his cordial encounter with the English expedition that had landed at Botany Bay, in Australia, just prior to Laprouse's arrival, and learn of the expedition, decades later, that solved the puzzle of his disappearance. This almost forgotten player of the great age of exploration will intrigue history buffs and readers of maritime fiction alike. SIR ERNEST SCOTT (1867-1939) was born in England but emigrated to Australia as an adult, where he wrote for the Melbourne Herald and was later named professor of history at the University of Melbourne. He is also the author of A Short History of Australia and Terre Napoleon.