Sotheby’s London presents books sale relating to the history of British exploration

KOLKATA: Sotheby’s London is presenting a sale of some 1,500 books from the world’s greatest private library relating to the history of British exploration, adventure and discovery. Covering every topic imaginable from female explorers, big game hunting and whaling, to scurvy, seasickness and orangutans, this unique collection has been assembled over 45 years by Franklin Brooke-Hitching - a private collector who has relentlessly sought the most magnificent copy (or ‘God’s copy’) of every book on the subject he could find.

Alongside eye-catching Victorian titles like Slave-Catching in the Indian Ocean, Two trips to gorilla land, Man-Hunting in the Desert and Tramps in Dark Mongolia, we’ll be selling first editions by an all-star cast of the greatest British adventurers (Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, Captain Cook, Darwin and Scott et al).

With estimates ranging from just £200 to over £100,000, some of the very best highlights include: A volume of 50 original specimens of fabrics collected by Captain Cook in Tahiti, Hawaii and Tongatabu, Ernest Shackleton’s Aurora Australis (the first ever book printed in Antarctica ‘at the Sign of the Penguins’ in 1908), The first map to show Captain Cook’s discoveries in Australia and New Zealand Hidden within the pages of these books are the forgotten histories of British explorers who were the heroes of their day - of Sir Richard Burton (one of the first Europeans to gain undercover access to El-Medina and Mecca in 1855), Sir Humphrey Gilbert (Elizabeth I’s courtier who tried to establish the first colony in the New World in 1583), Daniel Beeckman (the first European to discover Orangutans in Borneo in 1718) and John Franklin (who died along with all 129 members of his crew on a search for the north-west passage in 1845).