The Voyages of Matthew Flinders

by Max Colwell

Paul Hamlyn, 1970, ISBN 0600359492, colour and black and white photographs and illustrations throughout, illustrated end papers, colour frontispiece, large hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners (see photographs)

“Matthew Flinders was ‘induced to go to sea against his wishes of his friends from reading Robinson Crusoe’.  From an early age he set out to be an explorer and worked to realize his ambition with singular determination.  But at no time did he suffer any illusions about his chosen career.  Even when contemplating his first venture along the New South Wales coast in an eight foot boat with George Bass, he realised that the ability to make the best use of his equipment at hand was a necessary skill of the explorer.
‘Projects of this nature, when originating in the minds of young men, are usually termed romantic; and so far from any good being anticipated even prudence and friendship join in discouraging if not in opposing them.  Thus it was in the present case; so that a little boat of eight feet long, called Tom Thumb, with a crew composed of ourselves and a boy, was the best equipment to be procured for the first outset.’”