Accompanied by a printed reel guide, entitled: Guide to collections of manuscripts relating to the Pacific islands.

See also PMB 551 for Robert Langdon's Lost Caravel correspondence, 1967-1975, and PMB 999 for his correspondence, 1976-1987. For original documents relating to the Loaisa expedition see PMB 135-140.

Langdon's book, The Lost Caravel, was published in June 1975 by Pacific Publications Pty Ltd, Sydney. The book puts forward the theory that the crew of a Spanish ship, the caravel San Lesmes, lost in the eastern South Pacific in 1526, played a prominent role in the prehistory of several Polynesian islands, including the Tuamotu Archipelago, Society Islands, Austral Islands, Easter Island and New Zealand. The San Lesmes was one of the ships of the expedition of Garcia Jofre de Loaisa which left Spain in July 1525 to obtain a cargo of spices in the East Indies. Langdon's sequel, The Lost Caravel Re-explored, published in Canberra in 1988, gathers his evidence in support of the presence of European castaways in the pre-Cook Pacific, focusing on the fate of the crew of the San Lesmes and including a revised chapter on Easter Island and additional chapters on New Zealand.

PMB ; 1231

Langdon, Robert > Correspondence.

Historians > Australia > Correspondence.

Ethnology > Polynesia.

Polynesia > History.

Polynesia > Discovery and exploration > Spanish.

New Zealand > History.

Australian National University. Pacific Manuscripts Bureau.