Souvenir of New South Wales.

[Cover title]. [Sydney, NSW : s.n., ca. 1880]. Leporello album. Oblong duodecimo (105 x 155 mm), publisher’s blind-blocked tan cloth, the upper board decorated and lettered in gilt; containing a concertina-style foldout with [24] panels of lithographed views after photographs (most, if not all, probably by Charles Bayliss and/or John Paine); the final panel has a short marginal tear at bottom corner, but otherwise in exceptionally fine condition.

The views in this album are captioned as follows:

Sydney Heads and Port Jackson; Farm Cove and Government House; Circular Quay (Queen’s Wharf); General Post Office; Botanic Gardens; Australian Museum; Garden Island; Pyrmont; La Perouse’s Monument (Botany Bay); Govett’s Leap Waterfall; Manly Beach; Berry’s Bay and Parramatta River; Sydney – Darling Harbour; Grose Valley; Town Hall; The Gap and North Head; Double Bay; Coogee Bay; Nepean River near Menangle; Entrance Botanic Gardens; Sydney University; St. Andrew’s Cathedral; Zig Zag Railway; St. James’s Church.

Australian leporello albums, such as this anonymously published example with views of Sydney and the Blue Mountains, were attractive and popular tourist souvenirs that had their heyday from the late 1870s to the early 1890s. They were generally printed in Germany by arrangement with local booksellers and entrepreneurs, and it is probably no coincidence that at least some of these Australian retailers were German-speaking immigrants.