(#157206) A VOYAGE TO CACKLOGALLINIA: WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE RELIGION, POLICY, CUSTOMS AND MANNERS OF THAT COUNTRY. Captain Samuel Brunt, pseudonym.

A VOYAGE TO CACKLOGALLINIA: WITH A DESCRIPTION OF THE RELIGION, POLICY, CUSTOMS AND MANNERS OF THAT COUNTRY. London: Printed by J. Watson in Black-Fryers, and sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1727. Octavo, pp. [1-2] [1] 2-167 [168: blank], engraved frontispiece, engraved tailpiece on page 121, later three-quarter green pebbled morocco and marbled boards, titled on spine in gold. First edition. Satire in the manner of Swift's GULLIVER'S TRAVELS in which the narrator finds himself shipwrecked in a land populated by a society of fowls. "A VOYAGE TO CACKLOGALLINIA, written by Captain Samuel Brunt and printed at London in 1727, is one of the most imaginative, thoughtful, and subtly satirical works in the imaginary voyages genre. The author is a slave-trader who at the start of his narrative is captured on Jamaica by runaway slaves under their leader, a certain Captain Thomas. His shipmates having been decapitated, Brunt is taken to the slaves' village in the mountains and treated with kindness and hospitality. When the village is raided by the English and most of its population murdered, Brunt escapes with a friendly slave in a commandeered fishing vessel with the intention of reaching Cuba or Hispaniola. En route the vessel is captured by pirates, but, after further adventures, the pirate sloop breaks up in a storm and Brunt finds himself shipwrecked on an unknown island, Cacklogallinia, populated by a community of talking chickens. Its capital is Ludbitallya, and the island is ruled by the Emperor Hippomina Connuferento. Although at first regarded as a curiosity, Brunt (or Probusomo as he comes to be called) is befriended by the chief minister and rises to the rank of 'castleairiano, or, 'examiner of projects to raise taxes.' Brunt's description of the community is a fairly conventional satire on English life and Walpole's government, but the author enhances this with a parody of the South Sea Bubble, the speculative trading venture that burst in 1721, by involving Brunt in a project to finance a Cacklogallinian expedition to the Moon. Borrowing from Godwin's THE MAN IN THE MOONE, the hero is projected skyward in a palanquin borne by several of the flying chickens. However, rather than finding a trading paradise on the Moon, the Cacklogallinians discover a peaceful world populated by the souls of humans with a disregard for wealth and power, causing Brunt and his chicken entourage to reflect on the folly of their own societies. Anxious to return to his home country, and with the aid of a compass, Brunt descends from the Moon directly into the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, makes his way to Kingston, and there acquires a free passage to England." - Howgego, Encyclopedia of Exploration: Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel B60. "Nearly a hundred years elapsed between Godwin's THE MAN IN THE MOONE and the only other full-length English moon voyage to use the device of 'harnessing of birds' ... On the one hand this is a 'Robinsonade,' on the other an obvious imitation of the fourth book of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS which had been published a year before Brunt's lesser work appeared ... The originality of A VOYAGE TO CACKLOGALLINIA does not arise from its science ... It comes from the fact that this is the first moon voyage, the inspiration for which is to be found primarily in economics ... This is a satire upon that great orgy of speculation, the South Sea Bubble ... From this background, so poignantly in the minds of his contemporaries, Captain Samuel Brunt drew the materials for his satire." - Nicolson, Voyages to the Moon, pp. 98-108. Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 1-8 and (1981) 1-28. Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 286. Gove, The Imaginary Voyage in Prose Fiction, pp. 259-61. Lewis, Utopian Literature, p. 30. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 42. Locke, Voyages in Space (2011) V153. Negley, Utopian Literature: A Bibliography 159. Sargent, British and American Utopian Literature, 1516-1985, pp. 20-1. Bleiler (1978), p. 33. Reginald 02080. Title leaf soiled and stained, darker stain at lower gutter margin with offset on frontispiece and lighter penetration on two subsequent text leaves, blank verso of last leaf dusty, 40x24 mm triangular chip missing from lower fore-edge of frontispiece with small area of illustration affected, otherwise a clean, very good copy. Enclosed in a custom quarter leather clamshell box. (#157206).

Price: $4,500.00

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