Australian facts and prospects : to which is prefixed the author’s Australian autobiography

London : Smith, Elder, 1859. Small octavo, pebbled cloth with embossed and gilt decoration of gold miners (spine a little sunned), yellow endpapers, binder’s ticket of Westley’s London to lower pastedown, spine with gilt lettering, 258 pp, light scattered foxing. Ferguson no. 1054.

An attractive copy in original binding.

Resident in Victoria from 1852 until his return to England in 1869, the English poet R.H. Horne experienced colonial life during the gold rush at first hand. Initially he was variously employed as commander of a private gold escort, an assistant gold commissioner and a commissioner of water and sewerage supply, and became a co-founder of Tahbilk vineyard. After a period of unemployment and poverty he began writing again after 1863, becoming a well-known figure in the Melbourne literary scene and producing a drama for the Intercolonial Exhibition of 1866. “Australian Facts” contains a short autobiography followed by discussions of numerous aspects of Australian economy and society of the time, including gold, land, railways and inland exploration.