Terra Australis Incognita Or A New Southerne Discoverie London 1617

"The Isle of Pines" is a book by Henry Neville published in 1668. It has been cited as the first 'Robinsonade' before Defoe's work. It is also one of the early Utopian narratives, along with Thomas More's 'Utopia' and Francis Bacon's 'New Atlantis'. The book explores the story of these castaways — the Briton George Pine and four female survivors, who are shipwrecked on an idyllic island. Pine finds that the island produces food abundantly with little or no effort, and he soon enjoys a leisurely existence, engaging in open sexual activity with the four women. Each of the women gives birth to children, who in subsequent generations multiply to produce distinct tribes, which are at war with each other...

Reproduction of the original: The Isle of Pines (1668) by Henry Neville

"Including William Dampier's unpublished journal".

First systematic, inclusive study of the impact of the high civilizations of Asia on the development of modern Western civilization.

A 2006 investigation of the idea of the powerful Asian empires in the works of Milton, Dryden, Defoe and Swift.

'Virtual Voyages' is a fascinating account of the European discovery of the elusive 'great south land' told through the literature of 'imaginary voyages'. Written at the height of the era of European maritime exploration, these bizarre and captivating tales, with their wildly imaginative visions of antipodean inversion and strangeness, reveal a hidden history of attitudes to colonization. By exposing the relationship between myth and reality in the antipodes, this book casts new light on the power of fiction to influence history. In the post-colonial studies field, books about travel writing and empire have tended to focus on the high period of nineteenth-century imperialism and on the colonial settings of Africa and India. This book offers a fresh perspective by focussing on the eighteenth century, and referring to the geographical region of Australia and the Pacific, which has had far less attention. The book also breaks new ground by being the first to approach the genre of the imaginary voyage from a post-colonial perspective. In addition to the new insights into European colonialism that it offers, the book illustrates many broader themes in eighteenth-century history and thought. These include connections between the rise of science and modern imperialism, the development of narrative history and fiction and the influence of romanticism, the evolution of the early novel in Britain and France, and the role of mythology in the development of national identity.

The South Seas, as this region used to be called, conjured up images of adventure, belles and savages, romance and fabulous fortunes, but the long voyages of discovery and exploration of the vast Pacific Ocean were really an exercise in amazing logistics, navigation, hard grit, shipwreck and pure luck. The motivations were scientific and geographic, but at the same time nationalistic and materialistic. A series on global exploration and discovery would not be complete without this book by Quanchi and Robson. It is ambitious and informative and includes the familiar names of Laperouse, Bougainville, Cook and Dampier, as well as the intriguing stories of the Bounty Mutiny, scurvy, and the mysterious Northwest Passage, Terra Australis Ignotia and Davis Land. There are entries on first contacts, ships, navigational instruments, mapping, and botany. The scene is carefully set in the introduction, the chronology spans several centuries, and the extensive bibliography offers a guide to further reading. There are more than just dry facts in this book. It has a whiff of salt air, the clash of empires, cross-cultural beach encounters and personal adventure.