Australian shooting sketches, and other stories

London : Digby, Long, & Co., 1907. Octavo, gilt-lettered cloth (slightly dulled), presentations inscription from the author to the front free endpaper (with an old repaired tear), pp. 319; (1 – advertisement), a few spots of foxing but a very good copy.

Mrs. Edward Starkey was a member of the Henty family, her grandmother (described in contemporary newspaper accounts as ‘”the first white woman to land in Victoria”) married Stephen George Henty, who settled in Portland in 1836. This book is dedicate to the Marquis of Linlithgow, first Governor General of Australia and to ‘the Pioneers – Stephen, Edward, Frank and John Henty, the four enterprising brothers who, in the early Thirties landed from their ship on the Coast, where they founded the Town of Portland’. Mrs. Starkey, of Tang Hall, York, visited Australia on at least two occasions, on each occasion authoring memoirs of her visits.

This volume documents her experiences in Australia, with much of her time occupied hunting for sport various species of Australian wildlife, including emus, platypus, wombats, wallabies, bandicoots, koalas, kangaroos and sharks, interspersed with frequent exclamations of ‘Yoicks!’, ‘By Jove!’ and ‘What a boomer!’.

Surprisingly rare, with a handful of example on Trove and no copies recorded in auction results.