Journey of discovery to Port Phillip, New South Wales, in 1824 and 1825. (Presentation copy inscribed by Eliza Bland)

/ by W. H. Hovell and H. Hume, Esquires. Second edition. Sydney : Published by James Tegg, printed by Henry Bull, 1837. Octavo, recent gilt-ruled half calf, spine lettered in gilt; marbled edges; dedication leaf inscribed ‘Mrs Hatton, with the Affectionate Love of the little Wife of the Author, Eliza Bland, 4th August 1854’; pp. vii, [1 blank], 97, with a folding engraved map by Raphael Clint, the expedition route highlighted in red as usual; the map a little browned, but a fine copy.

The rare first published edition of the account of Hume and Hovell’s momentous overland expedition, edited from Hovell’s notebook by Sydney medical practitioner and politician William Bland (1789-1868).

This is a unique presentation copy, inscribed by Bland’s wife Eliza to a friend. Although the title page states ‘second edition’, the first (of 1831) had been a proof printing, without the map, which was not officially published.

In October 1824 Hamilton Hume and William Hovell, accompanied by six convict servants, set out from Appin, southwest of Sydney, in October 1824, with the intention of striking a trail overland all the way to Western Port on the southern coast of what is now Victoria. As it happened, the expedition’s three-month journey ended at Corio Bay, which Hovell’s miscalculations had led them to mistake for Western Port, much further to the east. The explorers were the first Europeans to discover the Australian Alps, and the Murray (originally named the Hume), Ovens and Goulburn Rivers. When they returned to Sydney with reports of vast tracts of fine arable land, the fate of the inland area they had traversed became sealed: it was destined to be colonised and become what was essentially an enormous pastoral estate.

The important discoveries made by Hume and Hovell led directly to the expeditions of Sturt and Mitchell, the success of the latter’s third expedition of 1836 probably being a driving factor in the decision to publish the Hume and Hovell account in 1837.

Ferguson, 2234; Wantrup (2023), 110.