Indian Ocean Collection
This week I took my first voyage to southern seas via the Indian Ocean Collection:
This collection came to NYU last Fall, the gift of Larry W. Bowman who gathered together books, periodicals, maps, and other materials on the Indian Ocean littoral - from Cape Town to Fremantle, with a focus on Mauritius and Seychelles. I spent the better part of my day today identifying items to be added to our general Special Collections holdings.
There are some amazing books in this collection -- great 19th-century volumes of exploration, trade, and seamanship. Most appropriate for Fleet Week in NYC.
Here's an excellent example:
That's the cover of this one:
The Sailor's Horn Book from 1860.
There are books about India, books about pirates, books about Madagascar, books about whaling. All sorts of good things. It will take a while for everything to turn up in BobCat, but this is a nice complement to the Victorian-era fiction about travel and exploration and empire.
Stay tuned for more choice selections.