Sailing Alone Around the World
New York: The Century Co., 1900. First printing. Illustrated by Thomas Fogarty and George Varian. Cloth over boards. Octavo. xvi [xvii-xviii], 294 pages. A few slight extremity rubs and a small prior owner label at top fore corner of front pastedown, some darkening along fore edge of lower board. Slight browning to frontispiece and title page. A remarkably bright and clean copy. Near fine.
Bright first edition of this landmark sailing narrative. Slocum was the first person to single-handedly circumnavigate the earth, doing so in his gaff-rigged sloop, "Spray," between April 1895 and June 1898.
"Spray" was a wreck of a boat given to Slocum by a fellow sea captain. He rebuilt her and sailed from Boston westward around the world by way of hte Straits of Magellan and the Cape of Good Hope.
Slocum's poetic perception of the world and his graceful descriptions of his vision of reality have caused this classic to be compared favorably to Thoreau's "Walden." Slocum and "Spray" disappeared at sea in 1909.
An essential first edition in any serious sailing collection.
Ref. TOY 462;.
Item #1084
Price: $1,750