Let's See If The World Is Round Hakon Mielche 1944 Maritime Provenance
 
Title: Let's See If The World Is Round
Author: Hakon Mielche
Publisher: William Hodge and Company Limited, London, Edinburgh & Glasgow
Printer: William Hodge & Co., Glasgow, Edinburgh and London
Date: 1944
Edition: Later wartime edition. This is not a first edition, as earlier editions were published in 1938.
 
Illustrations
Illustrated throughout with photographs and plates. All listed plates are present. The illustrations include views from the Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa, the New Hebrides and numerous locations encountered during the author's Pacific travels. However, the endpapers are not illustrated, as stated in the list of illustrations.
 
Historical & Bibliographical Context
Hakon Mielche was one of Scandinavia's best-known twentieth-century travel writers. Let's See If The World Is Round records his remarkable voyage across the Pacific aboard the schooner Monsoon, visiting remote islands and communities during a period when many of these regions remained little known to European readers.
The work combines travel writing, adventure, ethnographic observation and maritime narrative, providing vivid descriptions of island life, colonial administration, indigenous cultures and ocean voyaging. Published during the Second World War, it offered readers a glimpse of distant parts of the world at a time when international travel had become largely impossible.
Today the book appeals to collectors of maritime history, travel literature, Pacific exploration and twentieth-century adventure writing.
 
About the Author
Hakon Mielche was a Danish travel writer and journalist best known for his Pacific voyages.
 
Binding & Exterior Condition
Bound in the publisher's dark green cloth with gilt lettering to the spine.
The binding remains intact and structurally sound. There is no dust jacket.
Wear is consistent with age and use and includes rubbing to the extremities, patches of surface rubbing, bumping to the corners, small marks to the cloth and very small splits at the head and tail of the spine. Despite this wear, the volume remains attractive and presents well on the shelf.
 
Interior Condition
The pages are tanned throughout, as commonly encountered in wartime publications.
There are occasional light marks, stains and very light creases from use. The pages remain entirely legible. There are occasional small edge tears, including occasional tears to the inner margins, none affecting readability.
The upper corner of page 279 and its conjugate leaf has a small portion torn out if the book, extending through a portion of the printed area and illustration.
There is an extremely light crack between pages 112 and 113, though the binding remains secure.
The endpapers contain various ownership stamps, labels and annotations associated with the book’s maritime provenance.
All 330 pages are present and accounted for.
 
Maritime Provenance & Seafarers’ Education Service History
This copy possesses exceptional maritime provenance and appears to have formed part of the travelling library system operated by the Seafarers' Education Service, an organisation established to provide educational opportunities and reading material to merchant seamen serving throughout the world.
The front pastedown bears the original Crew's Library label of the Seafarers' Education Service, Selwyn House, London, whilst the front free endpaper contains a further College of the Sea educational label. Both are stamped WITHDRAWN, indicating removal from active service.
The title page carries an additional Seafarers' Education Service ownership stamp.
Most significantly, the volume contains a remarkable collection of shipboard ownership stamps accumulated over many years. These include:
• BRI Admiral – May 1948
• Esso Manchester – February 1950
• St Thomas – January 1950
• Kypros – January 1951
• Clan Sutherland – April 1951
• BR Cavalier – October 1951
• BR Glory – April 1952
• Maltese Prince – June 1953
• Trevelyan – August 1956
• BR Skill – February 1957
• San Veronico – October 1957
• San Fortunato – July 1963
Several of these vessels can be identified as merchant ships and tankers operating internationally during the post-war period. Clan Sutherland belonged to the renowned Clan Line fleet. Esso Manchester formed part of the Esso tanker fleet, whilst San Veronico and San Fortunato were vessels associated with Eagle Oil and Shipping.
The accumulation of these stamps strongly suggests that this book travelled widely around the world aboard successive merchant vessels for at least fifteen years, creating a fascinating record of life within the merchant marine and the educational services provided to seafarers.
Also included is a later invitation card addressed to Miss S. Watkin and Guest, adding a further layer of historical interest.
The maritime provenance is arguably more significant than the book itself and makes this a particularly appealing copy for collectors of merchant shipping history, maritime education and seafarers' libraries.
 
Physical Details
Pages: 330
Dimensions: Approximately 21.3 cm x 15.5 cm x 3.4 cm
Weight: Approximately 658 grams
 
Rarity & Collector Notes
The combination of institutional maritime provenance, multiple identifiable vessels spanning fifteen years, and retained ephemera creates a unique historical record unlikely to be duplicated in another surviving copy.