A Welcome Literary Bonus

Encyclopedia of Exploration: Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel
by Raymond Howgego
Hordern House Rare Books, 2013, 543 pages, $149

The publication of this, the fifth volume in Raymond Howgego’s monumental Encyclopedia of Exploration, rounds off one of the most remarkable publication ventures to have taken place in Australia. It is also an event that, for a time, did not seem likely to occur. For when the fourth volume of the Encyclopedia was published, in 2008, Howgego’s reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement, the distinguished writer on exploration Felipe Fernández-Armesto, noted the author had stated his work was complete and that he was threatening “like Catullus, to take to his bed”. For all those with an interest in exploration, including the remarkable field of invented narratives, the fact that Howgego found the energy for this final volume is a cause for celebration.

In his introduction to this volume Howgego notes that in previous volumes of the Encyclopedia he had drawn attention to the existence of narratives “of suspect or dubious nature”, and that some of these narratives came to be cited as genuine contributions to the literature of exploration. His reflection on this fact led to the present volume as his investigations revealed the existence of some 1000 invented and apocryphal works. The result in this volume is a detailed compilation and review of these works, with reference to some 1800 authors accompanied by impeccable scholarly apparatus in the listing of those authors, place names and books.

The result, to repeat a term I applied in a review of an earlier volume, is yet another “great plum pudding of a book”, rich in its entirety and full of the most delicious and unexpected individual delights. For while at first glance the subject of this volume might seem arcane, we have all at one time or another encountered the kind of material that Howgego reviews. Think of the well-known examples of the genre which are all reviewed here: Robinson Crusoe (Howgego lists several hundred “Robinsonades” inspired by Defoe’s original), Gulliver’s Travels and, from a later age, King Solomon’s Mines. Perhaps less immediately expected are the listings for Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of three novels featuring the fictional explorer Professor George Challenger, with the first of these The Lost World. And who would connect the name of Joan Lindsay of Picnic at Hanging Rock with, in Howgego’s description, the “hilarious spoof”, Through Darkest Pondelayo, a romp through a fictional isle somewhere in the Indian Ocean with landmarks such as “Dead Mother-in-Law’s Cove” and “Mount Blim Blam”?

Australia, as a subject both before and after European settlement, features prominently in the collection of fictional narratives, with the authors an eclectic group, including Jonathan Swift, of course, but also Lady Mary Fox whose mother was William IV’s long-term mistress, Dorothea Jordan (An Account of an Expedition to the Interior of New Holland, 1836), and King Stanislaw I of Poland (Entretien d’un Européan avec un insulaire de Dumocala, 1752).

In its final form the entries in the five volumes of the Encyclopedia of Exploration total some 4.3 million words, all the work of a single man, the English former physics teacher whose own love of travel has been central to his achievement. In a previous review I dwelt on the quality of the Encyclopedia’s production and the fact of its Australian publishing identity. What I have not previously noted is the fact that the existence of these five volumes stems from a decision made by the publishers, Hordern House, to commission Raymond Howgego to undertake this mammoth task at a time when neither the publishers nor the author had previously had any dealings with each other. The result has been serendipity of the most admirable kind. (A declaration of interest: the Directors of Hordern House are personal friends of mine, but I have had no role of any kind in the compilation and publication of the Encyclopedia.)

At a time when there so much reference to the “death of print” there is a measure of reassurance for lovers of traditional books in the fact that the Encyclopedia of Exploration is not available on the web! Copies of this volume, and of all previous volumes may, however, be purchased direct from the publisher. Nevertheless, and while there is no “net version” of the Encyclopedia, the publishers are ready to provide researchers with the text of individual entries on request under certain conditions via their website (www.hordern.com).

Milton Osborne is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney. His most recent book is Phnom Penh: A Literary and Cultural History (Signal Books and Oxford University Press, 2008)