The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, 1577 - 1580
Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2003. 1st Edition. Hardcover. 8vo. Fine / Fine. Item #007163
Full black paper boards. xiii, 400 pp. Dark damp stain to top edge of a few pages at rear. Else fine. On September 26, 1580, Francis Drake sailed his ship, the Golden Hinde, into Plymouth harbor on the coast of England. He had long been given up for lost, and rumors quickly circulated about where he had been on his three-year voyage and about the huge haul of plunder he had brought home. Queen Elizabeth immediately imposed a veil of secrecy around Drake's travels, and his men were ordered not to say where they had been "on pain of death." Drake had completed one of the greatest sea voyages of all time. In a ship barely 100 feet long and with only crude navigational instruments to guide him through vast, uncharted oceans, he covered more than 40,000 miles and was the first to sail completely around the globe. Author Samuel Bawlf masterfully recounts the drama of this extraordinary expedition within the context of England's struggles with Catholic Europe and Drake's ambition to open the Pacific to English enterprise, and he also offers fascinating insights into life at sea in the 16th century.
Price: $20.00