WEBSTER, Captain H. Cayley.
WEBSTER, Captain H. Cayley. Through New Guinea and the Cannibal Countries. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1898.
First edition, first impression. A striking late-Victorian Pacific exploration classic, offered in the original blue pictorial cloth, boldly blocked in gilt with native figures to the upper board and spine. Few books of New Guinea travel have such immediate visual presence, and this remains one of the most dramatic decorated bindings in the literature of Pacific adventure.
Webster’s narrative carries the reader through New Guinea, the Admiralty Islands, New Britain, New Ireland and the Solomons - a world of coastal voyages, jungle tracks, island settlements, missionary stations, colonial outposts, suspicion, barter, heat, illness and sudden danger. Beginning with the long outward journey from London in 1893, the book quickly moves into the uncertain and hazardous world of late nineteenth-century Melanesian travel, where every landing, river passage and inland excursion carried the possibility of discovery or confrontation.
The result is a substantial account of exploration at the edge of the British, German and Dutch Pacific spheres. It combines adventure, anthropology, colonial encounter and natural history, with numerous photographic plates giving the volume strong documentary force.
A highly attractive copy. The cloth remains bright and handsome, the gilt strong and the binding notably effective on the shelf. Early 1903 ownership inscription to half-title, and some foxing, chiefly to preliminaries, plate margins and occasional leaves. A compelling example of a scarce and desirable New Guinea exploration title.
