Author: JACOBS, Thomas Jefferson.
Title: Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Pacific Ocean, or the islands of the Australasian seas, during the cruise of the clipper Margaret Oakley, under Capt. Benjamin Morrell. Clearing up the mystery which has heretofore surrounded this famous expedition .. full account of the exploration of the Bidera, Papua, Banda, Mindoro, Sooloo, and China Seas .. the inhabitants of the islands .. and a description of vast regions never before visited by civilized man.
Description: NY, Harper 1844. Octavo publisher's blind stamped cloth (rebacked with the lower part of the spine laid down); 372pp, three plates (one folding - a view of Canton), wood engraved illustrations through the text. An unusually fresh and unspotted copy. ¶ A defence of Morrell in part, the worst of whom Jacobs would only say: "I am inclined to the belief that Captain Morrell was not so abandoned a man as many suppose, and that after the wreck of the vessel he became partially insane." Jacobs tried to join the expedition as a paying passenger, was refused by a suspicious Morrell and somehow became a sort of gentleman apprentice navigator cum companion. That's what he says, but nothing much else in the book is to be trusted and this can take an honourable place in the imaginary voyage canon.

Keywords: travel exploration maritime historyimaginary voyages c19th Australia Pacific south east asia new guinea sea nautical