# 29230

TENCH, Captain Watkin

A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, in New South Wales,

$13,500.00 AUD

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including an accurate description of the situation of the colony; of the natives; and of its natural productions. London : Sold by G. Nicol, Pall-Mall ; and J. Sewell, Cornhill, 1793. Quarto, later half calf over marbled papered boards (rubbed), spine in compartments with elaborate gilt decoration and green morocco title label lettered in gilt, bookplate removed from front pastedown; all edges speckled red; frontispiece folding Map of the hitherto unexplored country contiguous to Port Jackson, xvi, 212 pp; map and first few preliminary leaves with scattered foxing, otherwise contents clean with only occasional light spotting, one leaf (117-18) with closed tear; a very good copy with wide margins.

Scarce first edition of First Fleet marine Captain Watkin Tench’s second book on New South Wales, published just over a year after his return to England from Port Jackson in 1792.

‘[Tench] completes his account of the first years of the colony and brings his record of events down to the end of the first four years of settlement. The map and text give important and full details of the early expeditions of discovery to the south and to the west, including those which Tench led himself. As an accurate, well-written and acutely observed account of the earliest years of Australia’s colonisation, it is a most important addition to any collection of Australian books. It is rare despite the hundreds of copies that were originally printed….’ (Wantrup).

Ferguson 171; Wantrup 16.