Home
Shopping cart (0 items € 0)
Go Back

Extensive directory providing essential information for navigating
in the Southern and Eastern Hemispheres

HORSBURGH, James.
The India directory, or, directions for sailing to and from the East Indies, China, Australia, and the interjacent ports of Africa and South America ... Sixth edition.
London, Wm. H. Allen & Co. (back of title-pages: printed by Cox and Wyman), 1852. 2 volumes. Large 4to (29.5 x 23 cm). Contemporary green cloth, title in gold on spine. XIV, XXXIV, [2], 650; VIII, "890" [=880] pp.
€ 7,500
Revised and expanded sixth edition of a massive navigational directory, with exhaustive information on sailing routes, winds and other weather conditions such as monsoons, coasts, cities and their ports across most of the Southern and Eastern Hemispheres. It is chiefly compiled from recent journals of ships employed by the East India Company, by James Horsburgh (1762-1836) hydrographer and chart maker to the Company. "As hydrographer Horsburgh was primarily responsible for supervising the engraving of charts sent back to London by marine surveyors in India and ordered by the company to be published, and for examining the deposited journals of returning ships for observations which would refine the oceanic navigation charts currently in use, besides other duties of provision of information laid on him by the court" (Cook). The fifth edition had already added much information on the coast of Arabia, the Gulf, the Indus River and the Maldives. The present sixth edition expands the fifth further, particularly containing important new sailing directions, from the surveys of officers of the East India Company. Eight editions appeared between 1809 and 1864 before Findlay's A directory for the navigation of the Indian Ocean (1869) superseded Horsburghs work.
With two (illegible) owner's inscriptions on the front endpapers of the volume 1, one repeated on the front endpapers of volume 2. In both volumes the endpapers are blind-stamped with the stamp of "J. Omer". Bindings a little worn around the spine and edges and somewhat stained, some foxing throughout in both volumes, some leaves a little browned, the first few leaves of vol. 2 browned and somewhat water stained, the half-title of vol. 2 with a vertical crease, but overall still in good condition. Cf. Cat. NHSM, p. 73 (5th ed.); Sabin 33047 (5th ed.); for the author: Cook, "Horsburgh, James (1762-1836)", in: ODNB (online ed.).
Order Inquire Terms of sale

Related Subjects:

Maritime history  >  Navigation