Forty Years On The Pacific. The Lure Of The Great Ocean. A Book Of Reference For The Traveller And Pleasure For The Stay-At-Home. Compiled By Frank Coffee.

New York ; Sydney; San Francisco : Oceanic Publishing Company, A. M. Robertson, [1920] .. Signed first edition with a dedication to Charlotte Cameron OBE. A very good tight binding. pp.10/pp.375, with 9 maps and 51 pages of black & white pictures (including the frontispiece of the author driving a team of huskies in Alaska). Original blue cloth covered boards with bright titles to both spine and front board. Edges lightly rubbed and bumped. Dedication in brown ink to front free-endpaper: "To Mrs. Charlotte Cameron O.B.E. with a welcome to the land beneath the Southern Cross from the author Frank Coffee April 21, 1921." There is also a second owner's name to the same page: "Andrew Wise 1948". Light soiling to endpapers, otherwise clean English text and illustrations throughout. Green 'Erratta' slip inserted before p.vii. A few leaves with creased corners or small edge tears. Still a verY good book with an interesting provenance. **Charlotte Cameron O.B.E was one of the world's most travelled women. In 1913, she was elected to the fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society. Charlotte Wales Almy (1869-1946). Charlotte Wales Almy was born on April 14, 1869, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, the child of Jacob and Frances Jane. She married Auguste Ernest Geoge Jacquemard De Landresse in April 1901, and divorced him 1905. She later married Major Frederick Cameron. She died on December 9, 1946, at the age of 77." - See Wikipedia . *** Frank Coffee, (1852-1929) Born at the village of Warsaw, in New York State. He began his career as a journalist with the New York Herald and subsequently worked for several other American newspapers. He developed a passion for travel and his experiences became a theme of his writing. Frank Coffee moved to Sydney in 1881, leaving behind his journalism career for business. He established the Oceanic Publishing Company in Sydney, Australia. He was one of the first members of the Circumnavigators Club of New York. Frank Coffee never lost a flair for writing. He decided to set down impressions of ocean travel, places he visited and interesting sidelight of life that came to his attention. His initial writing was a series of letters to friends, followed by a number of newspaper interviews. Finally his autobiographical book, Forty Years on the Pacific: The Lure of the Great Ocean, was first published in the autumn of 1920 by the Oceanic Publishing Company and A. M. Robertson, Stockton Street, San Francisco, CAL. (evidently a US branch of his Sydney publishing venture).. There were a number of errors in the first edition, so the second edition of 1925 corrected these and incorporated additional information. He is best remembered for this work, which has considerable literary merit and is a recognised work of reference. Coffee compares himself to Mark Twain who turned from publishing to authorship, Coffee states 'I am a publisher venturing to become an author'... Frank Coffee died on 17 March 1929 aged 77 years. A requiem mass was celebrated at St Marys Cathedral, Sydney two days later and he was interred in South Head Cemetery that day." - See: Terry Fogarty and Joan Antarakis Willoughby District Historical Society