New Old Book - The Stange Adventures of Captain Quinton

[richlevy]

Well, I bit the bullet and ordered a copy of The Stange Adventures of Captain Quinton . For those TV buffs, the character of Quinton McHale on "McHales Navy" was loosely based on Capt. Robert Quinton.

I couldn't find any text for this book on the Internet. I decided that I wanted to read a non-fiction travel book from the late 1800's/early 1900's. While I am sure that there will be exaggerations in Capt. Quinton's autobiography, I'm hoping it will give me a window back to a time where you could be chased in a canoe by cannibals. With GPS and global television coverage, there is very little of this planet that has not been mapped and catalogued. In 1912, going more that a hundred miles from your home was an adventure, and the South Seas might as well have been the surface of the moon.

PS, when I'm done reading it I would be willing to loan it to anyone from the Cellar who promised to take good care of it.

Summary from another source -

THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN QUINTON. Being a Truthful Record of the Experiences and Escapes of Robert Quinton during his Life Among the Cannibals of the South Seas.
Christian Herald. New York. 1912. First Edition; 486; frontis portrait; illustrated hardcover (rescrimmed with new endpapers); (spine ends frayed) o/wise very good condition. Includes: Australia and New Zealand, among the Maoris, Hebrides and Liberty Islands, attacked by savages, weird customs in northern Queensland, Hong Kong and Singapore, Java, New Guinea and the Trobriand Islands, native theology of the Fijians, treacherous tribes of the Solomons, India, hunting buffaloes and tigers, sight-seeing in Japan, Panopi, in the Philippines, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, Hawaii, Pelew Islands, a good narrative.

From the preface to David Drakes "The Far Side of the Stars"

In the late 19th century a party of Russian nobles bought a South Seas trading schooner from its owner/captain, hired as captain the former mate (a man named Robert Quinton), and for several years sailed the Pacific from Alaska to New Zealand, from Kamchatka to Diamond Head. They hunted, bought curios, visited ancient ruins, and viewed native rites in a score of localities.

This sort of experience was available only first-hand and only to the exceptionally wealthy (or their associates like Quinton, who wrote a memoir of the voyage). Today anybody who watches PBS and the Discovery Channel can see everything those aristocrats saw, or at any rate as many of those things as survive.