Maritime Geography And Statistics, Or A Description Of The Ocean And Its Coasts, Maritime Commerce, Navigation, &C. &C. &C. Tuckey, James Hingston.

First edition of this uncommon and comprehensive global geography for mariners, based on Tuckey's personal experiences in the East Indies and on the voyage to establish the colony at Port Phillip, as well as extensive research conducted during his long incarceration as a prisoner of war during the Napoleonic Wars. This is a smart set in contemporary diced calf. While serving as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, Tuckey's vessel was captured by French forces at Rochefort in 1804; he would spend a decade in captivity. He states in the preface that his imprisonment allowed him "the perusal of many thousand volumes" for his research. Ferguson points out that Tuckey "describes the principal voyages round the world, including those of Cook, La Perouse, Broughton, and Vancouver [and includes] sections on America (United States), New Spain (including California), North-west Coast of America, Polynesia, New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land". For the chapters on Australia, Tuckey drew on his own experience - having been first lieutenant on the Calcutta in 1802, which made "a complete survey of the harbour of Port Phillip and a careful examination of the adjacent coast and country" (ODNB) - providing detail on all locales mentioned, with discussion of non-nautical detail such as the flora and fauna of the region and a description of the habitation of the convicts held there. In volume I Tuckey provides a useful bibliography of works consulted and the publishers include an interesting "catalogue of the most approved maps, charts, planispheres, globes", along with prices (Horsburgh & Arrowsmith's East-India Pilot heading the list at £19 15 shillings). Tuckey's health was, unsurprisingly, badly affected by his lengthy time as a prisoner of war, yet despite this he was put in charge of an expedition to the River Congo, which sailed in 1816. His ship got as far as the notorious cataracts and Tuckey proceeded overland, but his health collapsed, and he died "of exhaustion rather than disease" (ibid.). It has been remarked recently that Tuckey "personified the broader contemporary reimagining of naval captains as philosophers and agents of scientific discovery - a theme Tuckey developed deliberately in his 1815 text, Maritime Geography and Statistics" (Simpson, p. 68). Ferguson 628 calls for the presence of a map in vol. IV (a double-hemisphere world map, number 1815.07 in Perry & Prescott's A Guide to Maps of Australia in Books Published 1780-1830: An Annotated Cartobibliograhy, 1996), but this appears not to be present in most copies; not in Hill or Sabin. Daniel Simpson, The Royal Navy in Indigenous Australia, 1795-1855, 2020. Four volumes, octavo (214 x 128 mm). Contemporary diced calf, richly gilt spines with four low raised bands, matching sheep twin labels, gilt decorative border to sides, Turkish pattern marbled edges, grayish olive green surface-paper endpapers. Bindings lightly rubbed, ink-stamps of St. Patrick's College, Thurles, to all title pages, general light toning, scattered foxing, yet this remains a handsome set.