Raymond John Howgego

Encyclopedia of Exploration 1850–1940 by Raymond John Howgego & Australia in Maps by Maura O’Connor et al.

June 2008, no. 302

Ian Morrison reviews 'Encyclopedia of Exploration 1850–1940: Continental exploration' by Raymond John Howgego and 'Australia in Maps: Great maps in Australia’s history from the National Library’s collection' by Maura O’Connor et al.

The concluding volume to Raymond Howgego’s epic Encyclopedia of Exploration completes a remarkable undertaking by a small publisher. Hordern House, best known as one of Australia’s leading antiquarian booksellers, has a record of producing high-quality publications, and Howgego’s Encyclopedia – now totalling more than 3,500 pages – is by any standards a great reference work. Volume 1 (published in 2003) covers the whole of human history up to 1800CE; Volume 2 (2004), 1800–50; and Volumes 3 and 4 (subtitled The Oceans, Islands and Polar Regions and Continental Exploration, respectively), 1850–1940.

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Encyclopedia of Exploration, 1850–1940: The oceans, islands and polar regions by Raymond John Howgego

by Ian Morrison •

November 2006, no. 286

Ian Morrison reviews ‘Encyclopedia of Exploration, 1850–1940: The oceans, islands and polar regions’ by Raymond John Howgego

When does an explorer become an adventurer, an adventurer a traveller, a traveller a tourist? This third volume of Raymond Howgego’s monumental Encyclopedia of Exploration moves into a period when the lines become increasingly blurred.

Volume One (2003) covered all of human history up to 1800. In that period, any traveller who left a written account of his or her journey could be counted as an ‘explorer’, and Howgego’s sheer stamina in seeking them all out made this one of the extraordinary books of our time. Most reference works of this scale are assembled by small armies of writers, researchers and editors, funded by major international publishers. The Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800 was the work of one man, supported by the comparatively modest resources of Sydney antiquarian bookseller and boutique publisher, Hordern House.

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Encyclopedia Of Exploration 1800 To 1850 by Raymond John Howgego

by Ian Morrison •

February 2005, no. 268

Our age likes to think of itself as a time of constant change – leadership gurus call it ‘permanent white water’ – but how fast and fundamental were the changes around the end of the eighteenth century? In 1779, when Captain James Cook was killed in Hawaii, Europeans were settled in South and Central America and the Dutch East Indies, and were nibbling at the edges of India and Africa. Jesuit missionaries had been in China for the better part of two centuries. The rebellion in Britain’s American colonies seemed to be under control, despite the instability of George III and the interference of Louis XVI – whose position, despite some economic problems, looked unassailable. No sane person would have imagined that the traders, pirates, missionaries and scientists probing remote parts of the globe were harbingers of anything more than an expansion of trade and knowledge.

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