CURTIS, John

Shipwreck of the the Stirling Castle...

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George Virtue, London, 1838. Octavo, with a frontispiece, six plates and a map; a little spotting or light embrowning, tiny bit of worm damage to margin of map, but overall an excellent copy in contemporary calf, skilfully rebacked retaining original spine. First edition of this rare account of two famous shipwrecks. The wreck of the Charles Eaton occupies the second part of the volume, while the larger first part is the sensational recounting of one of the most famous shipwrecks in Australian waters. In 1836 the Stirling Castle, en route from Sydney to Singapore, struck a reef and was wrecked off Rockhampton on the Queensland coast. The captain, James Fraser, his pregnant wife Eliza Anne, crew and passengers took to one of the ship's two boats. After four days Eliza Fraser gave birth to a baby, who quickly died. The other, faster of the two boats mistakenly bypassed Moreton Bay to come ashore at the Tweed River; six of the seamen died, with one survivor later rescued at the Macleay.

The second of the lifeboats, leaking badly, landed on the northern tip of Great Sandy Island (later Fraser Island), the largest sand island in the world, sighted by Cook in 1770, and again by Flinders in 1799 and 1802. They traded with the local Aborigines and repaired their boat, but six of the seamen took guns and set out to march south, obliging the remaining four to follow.

Accounts of the events that followed vary wildly. Curtis' version, which he claimed to be based on Eliza Fraser's own account and corroborated by two other survivors, no doubt was aimed to hold maximum appeal for a sensation-hungry public. Curtis describes the local Aborigines as cannibals, who stripped the survivors and separated Eliza from her husband. He describes an ordeal during which the survivors were tortured and forced into slavery, during which Captain Fraser was murdered.

Other accounts, however, paint a very different picture of events: of Fraser (who was ailing before the voyage began) dying of natural causes, and of the local Butchulla people caring for Eliza Fraser by covering her fair skin to protect her from the harsh sun.

Eventually, the survivors were rescued by a search party from Moreton Bay led by Lieutenant Charles Otter assisted by John Graham, a convict who had formerly lived with the Aborigines. The rescue party reached Brisbane on 21 August 1836, three months after the shipwreck.

Certainly Eliza Fraser had much to gain by sensationalising her story. After her rescue she sailed to Sydney where she was fêted as a heroine, and a considerable fund was raised for her by public subscription. On her return to England she published a short but populist account of her ordeal, which was also published in New York.

This rare first edition of Curtis' version, which appeared in 1838 - a year after Eliza's - is a far more detailed account, illustrated by fine engravings and a map.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the story has become part of Australian folklore. It inspired two series of paintings by Sidney Nolan and Patrick White's novel A Fringe of Leaves. It has also been the subject of a television program and a feature film.

The Charles Eaton, whose story is told in the second part of the book, a ship headed for New South Wales with twenty-five child emigrants aboard, was lost in Torres Strait on 29 July 1834. The survivors were savagely mistreated by natives who killed all but the two cabin boys and two child emigrants, the Doyley brothers. Only the cabin boy Ireland and the younger Doyley - he was fourteen months - ultimately survived to be rescued two years later by Captain Lewis on the schooner Isabella, sent by Governor Bourke to assist the survivors. Murray Island, where the survivors were found, is near the far northern end of the Great Barrier Reef. The remainder of the crew and passengers had all been murdered by the islanders.
Ferguson, 2470; Huntress, 249C; not in the catalogue of the Hill collection.

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• Bestellnummer: 701_824

• Antiquariat: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)