The Business of Travel: Five Rare Books for Collectors

Highlights from Peter Harrington’s new catalogue The Business of Travel include: 

* The Bisset Archive

The candid journal of the 1925 British Arctic Expedition's geologist, Charles Barron Bisset (1900–1966), kept between June 19 and November 7, 1925, and photographs from the expedition. At the centre of this archive is the long-suspected but until now uncorroborated story of onboard mutiny - rumours of dissent reached the public through the press, but this is the first known contemporary account to confirm them.

* Dr. Lora Genevieve Dyer Archive

An archive chronicling three decades of missionary medical service in Fuzhou, China (1916–48), spanning more than 800 letters, diaries, and photographs. 

* Unpublished watercolors from Captain Cook’s Third Voyage by Franz Richter 

A unique 1805 suite of 49 vivid watercolours, among the earliest colour representations of Cook’s last expedition, 1776-1780, housed in a custom koa wood cabinet.

* Original manuscript fragment of Missionary Travels by David Livingstone

The only known portion of Livingstone’s landmark book in private hands, accompanied by a family letter and a first edition.

* Atlas of Cook’s First Voyage

Separate atlas to An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere by James Cook (1773). A rare folio of the plates and charts for Cook’s first voyage, here uncreased, untrimmed, and in excellent impressions. Most are usually found folded and trimmed in quarto volumes. It includes the Strait of Magellan chart, published in the second edition.