Presented to Queen Victoria by the author in May 1840, this book contains Charles Medyett Goodridge’s account of his shipwreck and survival for two years on the uninhabited Crozet Islands in the southern Indian Ocean. Born in Paignton in Devon, Goodridge had followed a career at sea from the age of 13 and in 1820 joined the crew of the sloop Princess of Wales on its first sealing voyage.

After several unsuccessful sealing expeditions on various sub-Antarctic islands, on Christmas Eve, 24 December, the Princess of Wales reached the Crozet Islands. First landing on Christmas Day, the sealing party struggled to find enough of the animals to hunt, but the ship remained in the archipelago for several months. On 17 March 1821, a storm shipwrecked the vessel and the crew were washed up on two of the islands, each believing the other party had drowned until they reunited some months later.
Stranded for two years, the crew hunted elephant seals and stole the eggs of rockhopper, gentoo and macaroni penguins. Attempts were also made to rob the nests of the larger king penguin but Goodridge reported that the birds ‘would strike at us with their flippers’. The book provides some early information on the mass migration of elephant seals to the islands (pp. 71-2). As their clothes wore out, the men began to fashion outfits from sealskin, as shown in the frontispiece to the volume.

After being sighted by an American sealer, Philo, the crew were rescued on condition of their providing manpower on further sealing expeditions. After two months, during which they were reportedly refused new clothes, the men complained of their treatment and were marooned by the Americans on St Paul Island where they were subsequently rescued by the tender of a passing British whaler King George. They were then taken to Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). Goodridge remained in Hobart until 1831 and recounted his experiences and opinions of the penal colony in the final pages of his book, first published in 1837. The first two editions, both printed in a run of 1,000 copies, were limited to Devon and Cornwall but quickly sold out. This third edition of 1839 was the first offered to the wider public. In it, and in his presentation letter to the Queen, Goodridge remarked that he believed his experiences were ‘the only instance of the kind since that of Alexander Selkirk’, the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.