THE

Life and Adventures

OF

PETER WILKINS

A Cornish Man:

RELATING PARTICULARLY

HIS SHIPWRECK NEAR THE SOUTH POLE;

HIS WONDERFUL PASSAGE THROUGH A SUBTERRANEOUS CAVERN INTO A KIND OF NEW WORLD; HIS THERE MEETING WITH A GAWREY OR FLYING WOMAN, WHOSE LIFE HE PRESERVED, AND AFTERWARDS MARRIED HER; HIS EXTRAORDINARY CONVEYANCE TO THE COUNTRY

OF GLUMMS AND GAWREYS, OR MEN AND WOMEN THAT FLY.

LIKEWISE,

A DESCRIPTION OF THIS STRANGE COUNTRY,

WITHI

THE LAWS, CUSTOMS, AND MANNERS OF ITS INHABITANTS, AND THE AUTHOR'S REMARKABLE TRANSACTIONS AMONG THEM.

Taken from his own Mouth,

IN HIS PASSAGE TO ENGLAND, FROM OFF CAPE HORN IN AMERICA, IN THE SHIP HECTOR.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF THE SURPRISING MANNER OF HIS COMING ON BOARD THAT VESSEL, AND HIS DEATH ON HIS LANDING AT PLYMOUTH, IN THE YEAR 1739.

By R. S., A PASSENGER IN THE HECTOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

A SINGULAR fact is connected with the history of the remarkable work now added to the UNIVERSAL LIBRARY. No trace of the author beyond his name remains; and it is probable that none of those who may admire the imaginative power, the natural style, and the sound moral precepts which characterise it, can ever learn more of him whose labours were so meritorious, but whose memory appears to have been buried with him. The glumms and gawreys supplied the description of his "glendovcers" to Southey, who characteriscs "the neglected story of Peter Wilkins" as “a work of great genius." In 1823, attention was again drawn to its merits by a very able paper in the Retrospective Review, in which the writer justly remarks that, "When we consider the high value deservedly attached to works of imagination, and, at the same time, the rare beauty of the fiction developed in the romance before us, it strikes us as incredible, that one so calculated to please the fancy and beguile the attention, should have failed even to obtain notoriety enough to convey down to us so much as the name of its author." The author's name has, however, within these few years, been discovered. In the year 1835, Mr. Nicol, the printer, sold by auction a number of books and manuscripts in his possession, which had formerly belonged to the well-known publisher Dodsley; and in arranging them for sale, the original agreement for the sale of the manuscript of "Peter Wilkins," by the author, "Robert Pultock of Clement's Inn," to Dodsley, was discovered. From this document it appears that Mr. Pultock received twenty pounds, twelve copies of the work, and "the cuts of the first impression," i. e., a set of proof impressions of the fanciful engravings that professed to illustrate the first edition, as the price of the entire copyright. This curious document was sold to John Wilks, Esq., M. P., on the 17th of December, 1835.