THE SHIPWRECK by WILLIAM FALCONER (1818) Start Price GBP 299.95 Current Price GBP 299.95 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Thursday, September 04, 2008 End Time Sunday, September 14, 2008 Location New Romney See more about 'THE SHIPWRECK by WILLIAM FALCONER (1818)' Description Item:  THE SHIPWRECK by WILLIAM FALCONER.   164 gilt-edged page (17cm x 10cm) leather hardback book with elaborate gilt decoration & marbled endpapers, printed by John Sharpe 1818 - almost 200 years old!!!   Content: This is an extremely rare 1818 edition of The Shipwreck by William Falconer.   The poem was first published in 1762 and was based on the author's own experience as second mate aboard a merchant ship which was wrecked on a voyage from Alexandria to Venice. Only three of the crew survived. The rousing and nautically precise three-canto saga was the most popular work of English poetry of the eighteenth century. The author's luck finally ran out when he was lost at sea when another ship he was travelling on was wrecked in 1769.   With full page chapter title pages engraved from designs by Rich Westall, RA.   William Falconer (1732 – 1769) was a Scottish poet. Falconer was the son of a barber in Edinburgh, where he was born, became a sailor, and was thus thoroughly competent to describe the management of the storm-tossed vessel, the career and fate of which are described in his poem, The Shipwreck (1762), a work of genuine, though unequal, talent. The efforts which Falconer made to improve the poem in the successive ed. which followed the first were not entirely successful. The work gained for him the patronage of the Duke of York, through whose influence he obtained the position of purser on various warships. Falconer was one of the three survivors of a trading ship on voyage from Alexandria to Venice and in 1751 he wrote and published a poem on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. He had also contributed poems to the Gentleman's Magazine. The poem The Shipwreck was dedicated to the then rear-admiral Duke of York where the poem states: "From regions where Peruvian billows roar,To the bleak coasts of savage Labrador." Falconer was a midshipman on the Royal George for s short period of time and then in 1763 became purser of the frigate Glory aboard which he wrote the political satire Demagogue. In 1767 he was purser of the Swiftsure. In 1769 he published The Universal Marine Dictionary. Falconer was purser on the frigate Aurora when it was lost after rounding the Cape of Good Hope on a voyage when it left from London on September 20, 1769. Condition: Overall Excellent Condition. Leather-bound hardback good + condition; loss of 1cm sq outer cover bottom of spine, minor damage top of spine, wear to spine decoration/titles, minor bumps/wear to corners/edges, minor marks. Pages excellent + condition; foxing/marks to the 4 'illustrated' pages and those immediately before/after these page (affects approx. 16 pages in total - probably caused by the use of different paper/heavy possibly acidic ink used for engravings - photographs available upon request) - remaining page faces very clean & bright with very occasional very minor marks.   Additional photographs available upon request.   Rare & Collectable!!!      SHIPPING INSURANCE All books are insured during shipping for their purchase value up to a maximum of UK £34.00 This insurance excludes postage & packaging costs. Additional cover available upon request.       Add me to your favourites list!   Check out my other items!   &    My eBay Shop     Powered by eBay Turbo Lister Place a Bid!