12mo. twenty five volumes. Contemporary or near contemporary dark green bubble cloth in good condition. Vols 1, 2, 21-24 dated 1801: volume 3 and 8-20 dated 1797; Volume 4-7 dated 1796. William Mavor (1758-1837) was an educationalist, cleric, teacher and writer who eventually became mayor of Woodstock. In his historical account of the most celebrated voyages, he draws together the accounts of world discovery, including those most recent, in abbreviated versions often with his own succinct introductory passages. Published gradually, it reached twenty volumes before a break, then five more were published in 1801. Later, Phillips (presumably without permission) use the Mavor series as the basis for a twenty-eight volume set. Ours however, are all the Mavor production. In our set, Vols 1 and 2 are clearly reissues with title pages to match the later issues, whilst 3-20 are from the initial printing. Vols 21-25 are likewise the first issues of volumes 20-25. Neatly printed, in our set each has a frontispiece, and usually two further engravings. In more detail: 1: Dedication to the King, introduction by the editor. Covers the discovery of America from Columbus onwards, with remarks on the Cabots, Vesputius, Cortez, descriptions of the Aboriginal Americans, de Gama, Magellan. 2: General travel; Drake, Raleigh, Monk to China and Japan, Africa, East Indies, and so on. 3; James and the search for north-west passage to India, Ellis to the South Seas, Dampier, Cowley, Woodes Rogers around the world. 4; Kolben and the Cape of Good Hope, Anson, Don George Juan to South America. 5; Grose to the East Indies, Byron, Wallis, Bougainville, Phipps, 6; Frontispiece map of Cooks voyages, covers the first and second voyages of Cook, 7; Third voyage of Cook, folding plate of the Death of Captain Cook, 8; Sparrman, Portlock, Forrest, etc 9; Phillip, Wilson in the Pelew Islands, voyage of Captain Bligh, Macartney to China etc.; 10; General travel, concludes with a table of latitude and longitude, and an index of the first ten volumes. 11. Discoveries of the North Sea Company; Thevenot, Chardin and travels in China by the Jesuits. 12. Bell, Shaw on Syria, Addison on Italy and Switzerland, Maupertius on the Polar circle, etcetera, 13. Pococke to Egypt, Hanway through Russia, Niebuhr, folding plate of Palmyra. 14. Travels of Bruce to the source of the Nile. 15. Thunberg to Africa and Japan, Page toward the north and the south pole. 16. Wraxall, Brydone, Swinburne, Sicily, Malta. 17. Wraxall to Denmark, Sweden and Russia, Costigan on Portugal, Hearne on Hudson s Bay and a north-west passage. 18. Coxe and Moore. 19. Moore on Italy, Brissot de Warville on the USA. 20 Campbell on Algeria; Menzikoff s travels in Russia; Holwell on the Black-hole of Calcutta; Hamilton on Sicily; Bristow on Calcutta, Campbell in India, plus general index to previous ten volumes. 21. Africa, including Mungo Park, Damberger, Ledyard, and Lucas. 22. Barrow and Le Vaillant on Africa. 23. Browne and Sonini on Egypt. 24. Sonini cont. and Forster. 25. Advertisement from the editor; Isaac Weld in North America, de la Rochfocauld amongst the Iroquios, and to Canada. Unusual to find complete, and a fascinating example of the way that the great voyages of exploration could be incorporated into the educational ethos of the time. The bindings are firm, and the books can be studied or read with ease. ESTC T77044.