Home / Browse / Autographs & Signed Books / Voyage of the Liberdade. Description of a Voyage "Down to the Sea."
SLOCUM, Joshua.
Voyage of the Liberdade. Description of a Voyage "Down to the Sea."
Publisher: Boston: Press of Robinson & Stephenson, 1890
Stock code: 69364
Price: £2,500 Currency Conversion
First edition, this copy inscribed on the first blank, "To Capt. Masson with compts. of Joshua Slocum, New York, May 21st 1890." Slocum's first book, really quite uncommon with just 11 copies on OCLC, only one of these in the UK (Cambridge). "In 1886 Slocum, accompanied by his wife and two sons, sailed in his bark Aquidneck for Montevideo. The uninsured vessel was subsequently lost on a South American sand bar. Slocum and his family were stranded without funds. He built Liberdade, modelled on a Japanese sampan and a Cape Anne dory, and sailed her through the Caribbean to New York with his family on board, a voyage of 5,500 miles in 53 days. An excellent account" (Toy). The recipient was very likely the Captain Masson who was master at the turn of the century of the Wavertree, the iron-hulled four-master now preserved at the South Street Seaport, New York. An extraordinary yarn by an extraordinary man.
Small octavo. Original dark green cloth, title gilt to the upper board, palmette band in blind at head and tail, sepia floral sprigged endpapers, Frontispiece from a photograph, title-page vignette, decorative head- and tailpieces. A little rubbed, corners bumped, neatly recased, small chip from the head of the title page,light toning throughout, a very good copy.
