TWO LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MANUSCRIPT SAILOR'S NAVIGATIONAL WORKBOOKS,: Well-illustrated and including sample voyages to Barbados and Madeira.

[Original manuscripts]., 1782-1784.. Two volumes. Folio (33 x 21cm). The first bound in contemporary half calf over marbled boards; the second in contemporary plain paper-covered boards. Each with a calligraphic ink manuscript title page: "William Shaw's / Book July 24th / 1782" and "William Shaw / August 14th, 1784". The first book comprising 186pp. in ink manuscript (entirely full), incorporating numerous ink diagrams. The second book comprising 129pp. in ink manuscript (entirely full), incorporating numerous ink diagrams and example logs of three voyages: "Journal of a voyage from London to Madeira. In the Nancy of London"; "Journal of a voyage from Madeira to England"; "Journal of a voyage from Liverpool to Barbadoes. In the Kitty of Liverpool". The first book with cracking to the joints, loss to the spine and wear to the extremities. The contents with two gatherings loose and the odd minor mark are otherwise in very good order. The second book firmly bound with marking to the boards and a little wear to the extremities. The contents with little cracking in places, scattered toning and light marking are otherwise in very good order. A pair of very handsome sailor's workbooks written in a beautiful calligraphic hand by William Shaw, extensively illustrated with navigational and astronomical diagrams (including a rather splendid diagram of the solar system) and incorporating three exemplar logs of voyages made between London and Madeira and Liverpool and Barbados.

Providing an excellent example of the navigational education of an eighteenth-century sailor, the manuscripts cover everything a seaman would need to know to traverse the oceans during the age of sail, with sections including: Navigation; Plane Sailing; Traverse Sailing; Middle Latitude Sailing; Mercator's Sailing; To work an Observation, or to find the Latitude of the Place by the Tables of the Sun or Stars' Declination, and their Meridian altitude or their Zenith Distance; Variation of the Compass; Of a Ship's Reckoning; To correct a Ship's Course for the Leeway; To correct the dead Reckoning; Oblique Sailing; Current Sailing; To find the apparent Time at Sea by an Observation of a Star; Spherical Geometry and Trigonometry; The Use of Globes; Astronomical Problems; A short abstract of Astronomy; The Copernican, or Solar System; To calculate the true Time of non or Full Moon; To calculate the true place of the Sun for any given moment of time; The Projection of Lunar Eclipses - including several examples with diagrams for specific dates and times in 1784 and 1787; To Project an Eclipse of the Sun; and Of the Horizontal Dial; amongst others.

The first manuscript also includes a section on Geography including lists of the nations, islands, and chief cities of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, as well as noting which nation certain territories "belongs to", followed by an additional list of British possessions in Europe and Asia. Penned towards the end of the American Revolution, it still notably lists all of the US states as belonging to Great Britain (except for Louisiana which belongs to Spain), and alludes to the problems of the Spanish in colonising Patagonia ("formerly in possession of the Spaniards, now of the natives") as well as the unconquerable nature of "Amazonia" ("little known by the Europeans").

The three sample voyage logs contained in the second manuscript - one of which is apparently copied from John Hamilton's 'The Practical Navigator' (1784) - record the ship's daily progress, weather, wind directions and bearings, sail manoeuvres, and other vessels that are encountered. In the log for the voyage from Madeira, for example, it notes that they "spoke with the Warrior, Sir James Wallace Commander, on a Cruise" (Wallace had been captured by the French during the Anglo-French War, being released in 1780), as well as encounters with "the Hamilton from Carolina bound to London", "the Betsy bound for London", and "the Dublin from Cork bound to St. Marys". The HMS Kitty, for which the Barbados voyage is recorded, was launched at Liverpool in 1784. Notably, between 1788 and 1805 she made nine voyages as a slaver, and later became a privateer, cruising off the River Plate, before being captured herself by the French privateer Caffard in 1806.