An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales :

With Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, &c. of the Native Inhabitants of that Country. [Together with] An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales from its first Settlement, in January 1788, to August 1801: with Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, &c. of the Native Inhabitants of that Country. To which are added, some particulars of New Zealand; compiled, by permission, from the Mss. of Lieutenant-Governor King; and an account of a voyage performed by Captain Flinders and Mr Bass; by which the existence of a Strait separating Van Diemen’s Land from the continent of New Holland was ascertained. Abstracted from the Journal of Mr Bass. London : T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1798 – 1802. First editions. Two volumes, quarto, finely bound in full polished calf with armorial crest of John Frederic Campbell, 1st Earl of Cawdor to upper and lower boards, ruled in gilt; spine in compartments with raised bands, contrasting morocco title labels, ruled and lettered in gilt, dates of 1798 and 1802 in Roman numerals at foot of spines; expertly rebacked preserving original spines; first volume with cracked upper joint (detaching), a few scuff marks; marbled endpapers, bound without the half-titles. Vol. I map frontispiece, pp. xx, xl, 617, [2 – list of engravings]; 18 full-page engraved plates, large folding chart, four vignette engravings; Vol. II frontispiece engraving, pp. xvi, map, 336, 3 full-page engraved plates with hand colouring, one monochrome plate; four vignettes (one hand-coloured); pale foxing and offsetting to a few plates, an old stain to the fore-edge margin of first few leaves in the second volume, overall a very good set.

The first edition of Judge Advocate David Collins’ journal of the First Fleet, with its striking series of plates illustrating Aboriginal people and their customs based on the sketches of Thomas Watling, supplemented by the rare second volume which describes the development of the colony in its first thirteen years. ‘The second volume is of the greatest importance, not only for its detailed chronicle of events but because of its narrative of voyages and expeditions of discovery … The journals of Bass and Flinders are of particular importance since Bass’s journal has never been recovered and … the accounts of inland expeditions recorded in the journals of John Price and Henry Hacking are singularly interesting. Quite apart from the exploration interest of these journals, they provide the first report of the existence of the koala, the earliest recorded sighting of a wombat on mainland Australia and the first report of the discovery of the lyrebird, which is for the first time described and illustrated in colour’ (Wantrup).

Ferguson, 263 & 350; Wantrup, 19 & 20; Hill, 335 (first volume)

Provenance:

Sotheby’s, London, Travel, Atlases, Maps and other Printed Books, 27 June 1985, lot 124

Purchased by Mr. Bonham (John Bonham?) as agent for Nicholas Morrell (Rare Books) Ltd and delivered to Maggs Bros., London, with a letter to this effect addressed to Mr. Ingleton

Nicholas Ingleton, Tokyo, acquired from the above