The Voyager's Companion, or Shell Collector's Pilot; with instructions and directions where to find the finest shells; also for preserving the skins of animals; and the best methods of catching and preserving insects .... Fourth edition.

London, Printed for and sold by the author, and by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Green, 1825.. 8°, contemporary leather-backed boards (front cover and first few leaves detached, as is the rear cover; spine somewhat defective), original publisher's printed label (2.8 x 4.4. cm.) tipped on to front cover. Internally good to very good. Overall (due to the state of the binding) in less than good condition. Armorial bookplate of Joaquim de Sousa-Leão, made in England, signed in print with tiny initials ("W.P.B."), dated 1927. Old rectangular illegible library stamp in upper blank margin of title page and lower blank margin of p. vii. (2 ll.), vii, 75, (1) pp., hand-colored aquatint frontispiece, hand coloured aquatint plate. *** This book was the first guide to shell collecting, with some of the earliest direct references to collecting shells in New Holland and the South Seas. Mawe's charming, rare guide to shell collecting was first published in 1804, without illustrations; only one surviving example of the first edition is known. The second edition is completely unrecorded. The third edition of 1821, with two color plates, is less rare, as is this fourth edition, enhanced by the two exquisite plates engraved by John Mawe. According to Stilwell, these were colored by Mawe's wife, Sarah. The illustrations depict shells and fauna found in the far reaches of the world, including the South Seas, with shells of the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), the Marquesas and Society Islands, Tahiti and New Zealand all discussed in the text. The collecting of shells in New Holland is discussed on three pages: "Van Diemen’s Land offers a vast field to the naturalist, particularly to the conchologist, zoologist and entomologist, who would be amply remunerated for whatever they might collect … "; there is further mention of rare shells found by two boys on a whaling ship in Western Port.Mawe (1764–1829), who spent many of his early years at sea, collected minerals in England for the King of Spain in the late eighteenth century. When war broke out between England and Spain in 1804, he was detained at Cadiz and then again at Montevideo. Only after Beresford captured Montevideo was he released. Soon after, he began a journey to Rio de Janeiro and then into Minas Geraes, which lasted two and a half years. After his return to England in 1811, he published Travels in the Interior of Brazil, particularly in the Gold and Diamond Districts of that Country, by Authority of the Prince Regent of Portugal, including a Voyage to the Rio de la Plata, and an Historical Sketch of the Revolution of Buenos Ayres (1812). Mawe opened a shop in the Strand and wrote books on mineralogy.Provenance: Joaquim de Sousa-Leão, distinguished Brazilian historian and diplomat of Portuguese ancestry, was a significant book and art collector. He wrote on art and historical subjects, being an expert on the Flemish painter Frans Post: see Frans Post 1612-1680, Amsterdam: A.L. Gendt & Co., 1973, and Frans Post, São Paulo: Civilização Brasileira, 1948.*** See Jeffrey Stilwell, The World’s First Shell Collecting Guide from 1821: John Mawe’s The Voyager’s Companion, or Shell Collector’s Pilot, Perth: Western Australian Museum, 2003.