The Rowan Gibbs Book Collection
Thursday, 16 November - Thursday, 14 December 2023

The Travels of Hildebrand Bowman

Lot Details

Esquire, into Carnovirria, Taupiniera, Olfactaria, and Auditante, in New-Zealand; in the Island of Bonhommica, and in the Powerful Kingdom of Luxo-Volupto, on the Great Southern Continent, W. Strahan and T. Cadell, London, 1778. xv,400pp early calf boards, later (but not recent) spine and endpaper replaced, sound copy, but lacks two plates. Bookplate of the Earl of Huntingdon. Extremely rare, no copy sold in New Zealand since 1977, regarded as the first New Zealand novel and certainly the earliest with New Zealand on the title page. A satire and fantasy pretending to be an account by a survivor of the Grass Cove incident when crew members of the Adventure on Cook’s second voyage were killed, cooked, and eaten. He heads inland into the then-not-disproved Great Southern Continent, encountering bizarre peoples and curious adventures. Dedicated to Banks and Solander and owing much to Gulliver’s Travels, the book was once thought to be the work of John Elliot, a midshipman on the Resolution, but a persuasive case has now been made for Robert Home (1752-1834), an English painter of Scottish ancestry, as the probable author. Holmes 27; Beddie 3921/4659; Bagnall 5600; Howgego Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel B40; Cliff Thornton ‘The Hunt for Hildebrand Bowman’, Cook's Log 33:4-34:3, 2010-11.