Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain

MacGillivray, John, 1822-1867Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.3
Word count
568K words
Chapters
57

Tags

English Originals Travel Nature ObservationMaritime ExplorationNaturalist RecordGeography ScienceExpedition NotesDocumentary NarrativeExotic Culture

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late CaptainAuthor: MacGillivray, John, 1822-1867,Language: English, Class: DU: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: History of Oceania (South Seas), Release Date: Jun 1, 2004

Editor's review

Centered on the observations of the naturalist MacGillivray, this voyage narrative records the mid-nineteenth-century survey of H.M.S. Rattlesnake in Australian and South Pacific waters. Its readability comes not only from seafaring adventure but from the shipboard scholar's sustained records of coastal landforms, flora and fauna, Indigenous societies, and colonial contact, presenting a scene where scientific survey and imperial expansion intertwine. The prose carries the detail and confidence of Victorian travel writing: readers encounter the daily work of collecting specimens, measuring, and drawing, while also sensing the historical limits of the narrator's standpoint. For students of Pacific history, natural history, and colonial science it is dense primary material; for general readers it can be read as a slow-paced account of a long voyage. Read it alongside maps and a glossary, distinguish observation from the author's judgment, and note how Indigenous peoples are represented in the text for a more critical reading experience.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Keep a map of the South Pacific at hand and mark ports of call and observation areas along the voyage to build a sense of space.
  2. Take notes in two colors, separating natural-history records from accounts of colonial contact to distinguish observed fact from authorial judgment.
  3. Read selectively by chapter according to your research or interests rather than insisting on cover to cover; long descriptive passages can be skimmed for summaries.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57

FAQ

Is this book mainly about seafaring or natural history? Both, and they are interwoven. The voyage provides the frame, while much of the text records coastal flora and fauna, landforms, and contact with peoples. For seafaring events, focus on the chapters marking voyage stages; for natural history, attend to the collecting and descriptive passages.
Are the book's descriptions of Indigenous peoples reliable? They should be treated as the records of a nineteenth-century European observer, carrying the standpoints and biases of the time, and cannot be taken directly as an objective portrait of Indigenous societies. Compare them with other sources and note the narrator's identity and assumptions.
How can a general reader approach this long record? Read the preface or introduction for the voyage's background, then choose sections by geographic area. Keep a map and glossary handy; when descriptions grow dense, grasp the concluding sentences first and gradually adjust to the pace of Victorian travel writing.

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About the author

MacGillivray, John, 1822-1867 Author · British · 1822–1867

John MacGillivray (1822–1867) was a British naturalist and explorer who collected and studied animals in and around Australia. Public information on his early education, appointments and the details of his expeditions is limited; what can be confirmed is chiefly the record he left of the voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake. His representative work, Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain, is a narrative of the voyage that records what was seen along the way, together with observations on natural productions and animals, and has value both as natural-history material and as travel literature. Two of his works are held in this collection. Such texts provide first-hand material for later understanding of nineteenth-century British surveying in Australia and adjacent waters, and give him a place in the tradition of natural-history and maritime-exploration writing.