COLLINS, David

An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales...

> click here to see the full size image.

T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, 1798 & London, 1802. Two volumes, quarto, with three engraved chartsand 32 engraved plates including eight in the text (five handcoloured), some foxing, insignificant tear to one folding map; a very good set in modern calf. A good copy of the first edition of the complete work, published as two separate volumes four years apart.

Collins had arrived with the First Fleet as Judge-Advocate and was Secretary to Governor Phillip. His book is a valuable account of the early settlement by an educated and observant resident of ten years, and was the last of the Australian foundation books to be published. This majestic work, often described as the earliest history of Australia as an English colony, contains the most detailed and painstaking of all descriptions of the voyage and first settlement found in any of the early narratives. The book is illustrated with full-page engravings prepared in London by the well-known artist Edward Dayes from sketches done in the colony by the convict artist Thomas Watling. They are the first views to have been published of British settlements at Sydney and Parramatta.

The first volume, published in 1798, is scarce today. For some reason the second volume, which came out four years later, is more difficult to find; uniform sets of the two, in fine contemporary condition, are of considerable rarity. '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).
Crittenden, 'A bibliography of the First Fleet', 69-70; Ferguson, 263, 350; Hill (second edition), 335 (volume I only); Wantrup, 19, 20.

• AUD 14,000.00 > otras divisas
• nº de pedido: 701_794

• librero: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)