Lot 200: SHIPWRECK TRAVEL NARRATIVES

SHIPWRECK TRAVEL NARRATIVES: 2 works bound in one volume (8vo), leather A) "Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the Brig Commerce, Wrecked on the Western Coast of Africa, in the Month of August, 1815, With an Account of the Sufferings of the Surviving Officers and Crew, who were Enslaved by the Wandering Arabs, on the African Desart (sic) or Zahahrah", by Captain James Riley. New York, 1818. Title page and first gathering deficient, text starting on vii. 407pp. Map of Africa deficient, foxing throughout, several loose gatherings. 8 copper-plate engravings in tact, including the facsimile of Arabic letter. B) In same volume, "A Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Ship Oswego on the Coast of South Barbary and of the Sufferings of the Master and the Crew While in Bondage Among the Arabs Interspersed with Numerous Remarks Upon the Country and its Inhabitants and Concerning the Peculiar Perils of that Coast", by Judah Paddock, Collins & Co., NY, 1818. 186pp. Intermittent foxing and toning. Two fascinating accounts of shipwrecks and servitude. Riley, of Middletown Conn, was Captain of the Commerce, a merchant ship that wrecked off the Moroccan coast in 1815. Riley's account of rescue and servitude to Arab masters for 18 months until ransomed was a wildly popular story in the 1820's, as it flipped the slave-master dynamic. Abraham Lincoln listed Riley's narrative along with the Bible and Pilgrim's Progress as one of the three most influential works that shaped his political ideology (Oren).

Estimate: $200 - $300

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