Forum Auctions
Lot 262
Voyages.- Slocum (Joshua) Sailing Alone Around the World, first edition, association copy with signed presentation inscription from the author "To 'Alan Erric', a friend who had a kindly encouraging word for the struggling skipper when the breakers seemed close aboard | Joshua Slocum | Boston March 31st 1900" on front free endpaper, illustrations, some light marginal toning, browning to pp.120-121 and slightly lighter to pp.264-265, otherwise mostly clean, original decorative cloth, spine faded, light surface marks, extremities lightly rubbed, else an excellent and bright example, 8vo, New York, 1900. *** Rare association copy of this classic of nautical literature. Sailing Alone Around the World is the superb narrative of the first single-handed circumnavigation of the globe and the "justly admired record of [Slocum's] seamanship, character, and navigational skill" (ANB).In 1892, he was given the Spray, a small weather-beaten 37-foot oyster sloop designed for coastal sailing. After rebuilding the sloop, Slocum left Boston in 1895 for his three-year solo voyage.In Chapter X, he shields from a storm and gets the Spray into a snug nook in Port Angosto, still 60 miles short of his next destination towards Cape Pillar and the Pacific. Laden with tallow and salvaged cargo, he just escapes from a brush with the native Feugians and gets out of his anchorage, though not before drifting around - namely the eponymous dedicatee of the inscription – Alan Erric Island. The eponymous Alan Erric is not mentioned in detail, but alluded to only as an acquaintance: “I named it Alan Erric Island, after a worthy literary friend whom I had met in strange by−places” – p.132. A rare association inscription and link to this maritime literary cornerstone.