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ADAM, Paul Auguste Marie

Lettres de Malaisie.

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Editions dela Revue Blanche, Paris, 1898. Octavo, some browning, uncut; a good copy in publisher's blue quarter cloth. Probable first edition of Adam's most important work (Lewis cites a first edition of 1897, but that may be a ghost as this 1898 edition is generally regarded as the first).

Adam (1862-1920) declared that he wrote this novel set in the East Indies as an extension of the earlier work of French utopian writers, but it also shows an awareness of realized societies in Texas and Illinois. It is an account of the fictional 'Adam's Country', a colony established by a dedicated community of French settlers, marked by ostentatious comfort and extreme xenophobia. Despite its humble beginnings, the settlement has quickly come to dominate the local tribes, pressing them into unquestioning obedience to the State.

Like so many ideal societies, its continuing harmony is due to oppressive social controls: the sterilisation of asocials; the State control of artists; the enlistment of criminals into the Army. Even the advances in science (which include a pre-Edison description of the phonograph) are usually dedicated to the active or passive control of the population. This fascination with observation and control extends to descriptions of some of the scientific experiments being conducted on the native population, including the most infamous, where the inhabitants are 'rehabilitated through satiety in weekly public orgies in which the 'communism of erotic sensations' results in the successful neutralization of sexuality' (Frédéric Rouvillois, 'Utopia and Totalitarianism,' in Schaer et al., Utopia).
Lewis, p. 1; Manguel & Guadalupi; Negley, p. 3.

ADAMS, Nehemiah

A Voyage Around the World.

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Henry Hoyt, Boston, 1871. Octavo, frontispiece of Cape Horn; original brown cloth. A fine copy of the scarce first book edition (originally serialised in The Congregationalist during 1869, and subsequently republished in a number of editions as Under the Mizzen Mast). This travel narrative for boys describes the author's voyage in the Golden Fleece to San Francisco, Hawaii, Hong Kong and Manila.
Carter, p. 5.

Viagem ao interior da Nova Hollanda...

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Vicente Jorge de Castro, Lisbon, 1841. Three volumes bound in one, small octavo; some wear to the edges of the boards and a library reference at head of spine, a few spots but an attractive copy in contemporary quarter calf. A rare imaginary voyage to Australia, not recorded by most of the commentators on the genre.

The anonymous hero of the narrative arrives in New South Wales in 1836, after travelling from Liverpool as manservant to a lord. He spends several years in the colony, and travels extensively in the interior. Fulsome descriptions of the social life of Sydney and the beauties of Australia are used to paint a picture of an utopian new world full of hope and enterprise, in stark contrast with the evils of life in Europe. Ferguson comments on the narrator's hope that 'this new nation will be forever free from the vices of the old world'.

This is the only edition of this rare piece, which was written by a Portuguese civil servant.
Innocêncio, VII, 405.

AINSWORTH, William Harrison

Jack Sheppard a romance. Illustrated by George Cruikshank.

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Richard Bentley, London, 1839. Three volumes, octavo, with 27 illustrations by George Cruikshank (one from volume 1 bound in volume 2), half-title missing from volume 3; a fine copy in later red morocco, spines gilt. First edition. The most celebrated of the prolific Ainsworth's "Newgate" novels, chronicling the career of the eponymous Sheppard (1702-24), a swashbuckling criminal who sensationally escaped from Newgate, only to be captured and hanged at Tyburn. The novel was well received, not least because of the vigorous plates by Cruikshank, better known for his work with Dickens. An elegant copy.

With the bookplate of Aldenham House, Hampshire.
Sadleir, 14.

ALMQVIST, Carl Jonas Love

Parjumouf. Saga ifran Nya Holland.

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A. Gadelius, Stockholm, 1817. Duodecimo, 98 pp.; in good condition in a neat modern morocco binding. An interesting early Swedish fiction set in colonial Australia, although an archaic name is used for the continent. This scarce fiction with an Australian setting has never been translated into English.

"Almqvist's earliest books, published in 1814-18, are of extreme rarity. One of these was Parjumouf... apparently the first Swedish novel or short story with an Australian setting" (Du Rietz). A meeting at a wine merchant's in Bordeaux is told of the adventures of the young woman Parjumouf in New Holland, also referred to by Almqvist as Ulimaroa, a name that he had adapted from the Swedish geographer Daniel Djurberg, who had picked it up from the official narrative of Cook's first voyage. Both Cook and Joseph Banks had noted the use of the name in New Zealand (see Du Rietz, Daniel Djurbergs namm på Australien, Ymer, 1961).

Ferguson records only the National Library copy, but the Mitchell Library is known to have acquired a copy in the 1960s.
Du Rietz, Swansea, 92.

ANGAS, George French

The Wreck of the "Admella," and Other Poems.

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London, 1874. Octavo, 91 pp.; original green cloth, rebacked; couple of stains on upper board, someshelfwear. Presentation copy inscribed by George French Angas to his daughter Georgiana: she and her three sisters were the dedicatees of this anthology of poems, published in London after Angas had returned there with his family in 1863. During this phase of his life, Angas busied himself with a variety of projects, including providing illustrations for the published journals of Australian explorers John McDouall Stuart and John Forrest, as well as writing books on Australia and Polynesia, and writing numerous scientific papers on conchology.

This collection of verse spans Angas's life and includes poems written in commemoration of two famous Australian shipwrecks, the Admella, which was wrecked in 1859, and the Dunbar, which was wrecked off Sydney Heads in 1857. There is also a poem describing the return to his homeland of his young Maori friend Pomara, who had accompanied Angas to London.

The anthology was dedicated to his four daughters and this copy was inscribed by Angas to his third daughter, "Georgie Angas with Papa's love, Jany. 1 1874". Tragically, Georgie predeceased her father by just four months in 1886, dying five days after giving birth to her second child. In a letter now in the Mitchell Library, Angas wrote of his loss to his friend John Brazier, the Sydney conchologist, 'I have just lost my darling daughter [Georgiana], a most excellent, beautiful, and talented girl, beloved by all who knew her... This sad, sad bereavement has left me quite broken hearted, and in my invalid state of health left me quite unfit and unable to attend to anything'.

ANON

China in Miniature; containing illustrations...

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Clapp and Broaders, Boston, 1834. Duodecimo, 15 plates (14 hand-coloured); fine in contemporary calf-backed boards. A delightful study of nineteenth-century Chinese life. Issued with 16 plates one of which is missing. The plates depict Chinese from a variety of vocations, including Mandarin, Fruit-seller, and Mantuamaker or dressmaker. Rare; not listed in any of the standard bibliographies.

ANONYMOUS

Deux Contes de Cette Année.

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Chez Desbordes, Amsterdam, 1700. Two volumes in one, small octavo; a fine copy in contemporary red-brown morocco, spine gilt in compartments, all edges gilt, blue silk markers. First edition of this rare work containing a pair of fantasies and fables: they are satires on contemporary mores and characters, this no doubt accounting for both the anonymity and the dubious publication details. The title is not recorded by Barbier and we have not found a satisfactory reference to it in the standard bibliographies.

The anonymous narrator, by 'un heureux hazard', discovers a manuscript entitled 'L'Etat de l'Empire des Fées'. Published in two books, the first follows the adventures of King Binkbinc, and the second 'la Gageure des Fées'. The noble spirits have been brought into a state of degeneration through their relationship with humans, and many of the laws of their wise founder Solomon have been ignored. Thus, the society of the fairies is unusually regimented, and part of the work is dedicated to a discussion of the various classes, in doing so showing the work's debt to the utopian tradition.

ANONYMOUS

Les Loix du Roy Minos...

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Francois l'Honore, Amsterdam, 1716. Duodecimo, contemporary vellum, titled in ink on the spine, oldpatch to lower cover; a good copy. 'Nouvelle edition' (according to the title-page) of an early work in the tradition of Fénélon's Avantures de Télémaque, and a continuation of its fourth book. It is very rare: OCLC lists only one copy, in the City University of New York Graduate Library.

Fénélon's Télémaque was an idealised account of the Roman Republic, and one of the most important books in the French classical tradition of the imaginary voyage. Although the authorship of Les Loix du Roy Minos remains unknown, it is one of the most inventive of the Fénélon imitations, a detailed investigation of the legal and political system of the utopian Minos: the focus on the courts and policing of the kingdom suggests an author associated with the legal system.
Not in Barbier or NUC.

SHACKLETON, Ernest H

South: The Story of Shackleton's Last expedition 1914-1917.

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Macmillan London, 1920. Octavo, with 88 illustrations and diagrams; a couple of library stamps; a fine copy in the original dark blue ribbed cloth. First American edition, second printing, of Shackleton's expedition account.

After hearing of Amundsen's victory in attaining the South Pole - a goal he had so nearly achieved in his 1907-09 expedition - Shackleton decided on a bold plan to cross the Antarctic continent from sea to sea.

The British Trans-Continental Expedition consisted of two parties: Shackleton's Weddell Sea Party which sailed to South Georgia in the Endurance, and the Ross Sea Party, which sailed from Sydney in the Aurora and began their trek at Cape Evans.

Before making a landing, members of Shackleton's party were trapped in the ice in the Endurance and forced to spend ten months there until the Endurance sank due to pressure cracks. After a further six months on the ice floes, Shackleton took five men and sailed to South Georgia where they chartered a boat and returned to rescue the rest of the party camped on Elephant Island. Their efforts had been in vain: they abandoned the expedition without ever having set foot on the continent.

The Ross Sea Party was scarcely more successful. Under extreme conditions, the shore party had sledged over one thousand six hundred miles in six and a half months to lay provision trails to support the continental crossing that would not occur.

This is an unusually good copy of the "New and Cheaper edition", printed in November 1920 (the first printing was in January of the same year).
Rosove, 308.B2.

APIANUS, Petrus

Cosmographia introductio...

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Sabiensis Venice, 1551. 16mo., several woodcut illustrations; a fine copy in contemporary vellum, slightly bowed, (despite numbering of leaves, collates as complete). Rare early edition, in the popular shortened format, of Apianus' hugely influential work on cosmography, an early geographical text with numerous woodcuts of the earth, the Zodiac, and examples of determining longitude and latitude. The text neatly summarises the Renaissance world view, and includes several references to Amerigo Vespucci's discovery of America. The book is notable for 'the division of the earth into climatic zones, the uses of parallels and meridians, the determination of latitude, several methods for determining longitude including that of lunar distance, the use of trigonometry to determine distances, several types of map projections, and many other topics...' (Karrow). Apianus owes much of his early work to the eminent Martin Waldseemuller, often making only minor changes to his maps and then publishing them as his own.

Apianus' work in its full-length form was first published in 1524; it first appeared in this popular format in Antwerp in 1532 or 1533. This is one of about seven editions produced in Italy in the sixteenth century, all of them rare today.

One of the most popular of all scientific books, over eighty-five years Apianus' text went through more than forty-five editions, in four languages, published in seven cities, by at least eighteen publishers. This popular version, with its text considerably shortened, contains a number of woodcut illustrations but not the moving volvelles that appear in the full versions.
Alden, 'European Americana', 551/5 (two copies only); Karrow, p.53; NUC, 0354519; Ortroy (Apian), 92.

APIANUS, Petrus

Cosmographia introductio...

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Io. Antonius da Sabbio & Brothers for Melchiore Sessa, July, Venice, 1533. Small octavo, with a large woodcut on title-page of an astrolabe enclosing the world, with a full-page astronomical woodcut on the verso, numerous illustrations and diagrams in the text including a repeated map of Southern Greece, printer's device on last leaf; a few stains but a fine copy in old half red calf. Rare early edition, in the popular shortened format, of Apianus' hugely popular work on cosmography, an early geographical text with numerous woodcuts of the earth, the Zodiac, and examples of determining longitude and latitude. The book neatly summarises the Renaissance world view, and includes several references to Amerigo Vespucci's discovery of America. The book is notable for 'the division of the earth into climatic zones, the uses of parallels and meridians, the determination of latitude, several methods for determining longitude including that of lunar distance, the use of trigonometry to determine distances, several types of map projections, and many other topics...' (Karrow).

Apianus' work in its full-length form was first published in 1524; it first appeared in this popular format in Antwerp in 1532 or 1533. This is the second edition in this form, and the first of at least seven such editions produced in Italy in the sixteenth century.

One of the most popular of all scientific books, over eighty-five years Apianus' text went through more than forty-five editions, in four languages, published in seven cities, by at least eighteen publishers. This popular version, with its text considerably shortened, contains a number of woodcut illustrations but not the moving volvelles that appear in the full versions.
Alden, 'European Americana', 533/3; Harrisse (BAV) , Add 100; JCB, I, 107; Van Ortroy , 84.

AN OLD TOXOPHOLITE

The Archer's Guide...

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T. Hurst, London, 1833. Duodecimo, with three coloured plates; a very good copy in half red calf byZaehnsdorf. First edition: including a glossary of terms and phrases used in archery, with bibliographical references. The plates (and perhaps the text too) are by Robert Cruikshank.

ARTUS, Thomas, Sieur d'Embry

Description de l'Isle des Hermaphrodites Nouvellement Découverte...

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Herman Demen, Cologne, 1724. Octavo, with an engraved frontispiece; a fine copy in contemporary calf, slightly rubbed, spine panelled in gilt. Second edition of this imaginary voyage to the island of the hermaphrodites, an allegorical attack on the court of Henri III (the first edition of 1605 is excessively rare). Little is known about Artus, except that he came from a noble Parisian family. His book is a virulent satire on European manners generally, and the French court specifically, in which a vast array of evils are 'ironically depicted as admirable' (Gibson).

It is also an important work in the imaginary voyage tradition because, as Atkinson comments, it 'attempts to present a realistic setting, based upon accounts of genuine voyages'. Given this, it is unsurprising that a series of editions were reissued in the first half of the eighteenth century, of which this is the first. Interestingly, unlike the physical hermaphroditism depicted in works such as Foigny's, Artus uses the concept metaphorically to support his sustained attack on the perceived effeminacy of the French court. Thus Atkinson: 'In the virile eyes of the author the attention of these people to fine raiment, cosmetics, and soft indulgence makes them less than men, and more like women'.
Barbier, I, p. 893; Gibson, 'St. Thomas More... with a Bibliography of Utopiana', 610; Negley, 44.

AUSTRALIAN SCHOOL

Original oil painting of a group of Australian Aborigines.

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Probably Sydney, 1849. Oil on board, 140 x 190 mm.; in very good condition, framed. A haunting mid-nineteenth-century painting of an Aboriginal man standing in front of a group of Aboriginal women. The group is evidently at camp under the shade of a rocky outcrop and trees to the far right, and there are lovely individual touches such as the brightly coloured head-scarves being worn by three of the women, the small fire at the far left, or the dog, perhaps a dingo, laying next to the woman at right.

Scenes of Aboriginal life in New South Wales had been a popular subject amongst local artists from the early days of settlement. By the mid-nineteenth century traditional Aboriginal life had all but vanished from the areas around Sydney and most depictions of Aborigines of this date show small clusters of local tribespeople standing on the edges of the emerging new European settlement. Artists often added these groups to their paintings to add a touch of the picturesque. What marks the present painting out is that the aboriginal group is not merely a compositional device, but the sole subject: indeed, two of the women studiously have their backs to the artist - and the viewer - suggesting that the scene is probably an authentic depiction of what the artist saw.

Attempts to encourage Aborigines to wear European clothing began with settlement, however it was not until Macarthur's governorship that more strident calls were made for Aborigines to be prevented from appearing naked in public. The women of this group have apparently abandoned their traditional dress, and are wrapped in British blankets: the markings "B.O. / 1849" and an arrow painted on the blanket of one figure on the right indicate that she wears a blanket which was originally convict issue; the "B.O." stands for "British Ordinance", and numbers probably indicate that the year of manufacture was 1849. From the work of a number of other artists, from Augustus Earle to George French Angas, Alexander Schramm, Charles Hill and William Strutt, we know that the adoption of blankets draped about the shoulders was a common mode of dress for the Aboriginal people, particularly the women, after colonisation.

The male figure, as is often seen in other works of the period, is more elaborately clad in cast-off clothing. He is wearing a long coat over a loosely buttoned shirt and what appears to be a straw hat. This somewhat pathetic figure is poignantly reminiscent of other images of aborigines in the colonial period, notably the famous series of silhouettes done by W.H. Fernyhough in 1836.

The identity of the artist of this work is a mystery. One possibility is that the artist may have been Captain Otway, whose work is known only by a signed painting from the 1840s, "'Charley' Spearing Kangaroos", in the Nan Kivell collection in the National Library of Australia. Certainly the format of the Nan Kivell painting is similar to this present work; it is oil on card of roughly the same scale, and it has been dated at around 1847.

Original images such as this, which form an important part of the documentary record of mid-nineteenth-century Australia, are mostly held institutionally and are rarely offered on the market.

AZEMOR. ANONYMOUS

Azémor ou Tableau des Moeurs et Coutumes du Pays de Solamir.

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Chez les Libraires Associes, Paris, 1787. Two volumes, duodecimo; contemporary French quarter calf,boards rubbed, some chipping to spines. The very rare first edition of this work, which purports to be the translation of an ancient text.

The young Greek Azémor, travelling with Tiresias in order to learn the ways of government, journeys to Solamir, known only to a few Europeans, and which can only be reached after journeying right across Egypt. Described as one of the most beautiful nations in the world, it has for centuries dwelt in the peace and repose of temperate laws allied with the naturally amiable disposition of the locals. Tiresias comments: 'Je connais un pays dans l'univers, où les vices répandus sur la surface du Globe n'ont point encore pénétré. Cette contrée heureuse est Solamir'. Enchanted, Azémor describes the felicity of the utopian society and proceeds to fall in love with Tiresias's daughter Mirza. The later books chronicle Azémor's travels throughout the world before his eventual return and marriage.

Unknown in most libraries.
Not in Barbier.

BACON, Sir Francis, Viscount of St. Albans

Histoire Naturelle...

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Antoine de Sommaville…, Paris, 1631. Octavo, woodcut device on title and woodcut initials throughout, with some contemporary ms. annotations; slight staining but a good copy in original vellum. First French edition of Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum (first published in English in 1626), and thus of Bacon's enormously influential work New Atlantis. It introduced the imaginary voyage into utopia: 'we are told, as shall henceforth often be told in Pacific utopias, just how the author got there: he was on his way from Peru to China and Japan across the Southern Ocean' (Dunmore). The translation is by Pierre d'Amboise. The polymath Bacon (1561-1626) was for many years a highly favoured member of the Jacobean court, but he spent his last years in disgrace after being arraigned on charges of bribery. It was in this retirement that he wrote many of his greatest works, including this sweeping essay on natural history. It concludes with his utopian dream New Atlantis, a Christian utopia governed by the House of Salomon, a college dedicated to the idea that continuing research would lead to the conquest of nature, and thus to the veneration of God. Rees calls this the rather modern notion of the 'research institution as the power-house of an ideal society'.

Sylva Sylvarum was the last work written by Bacon before his death in 1626 (he died from bronchitis, the result of a chill caught while stuffing a chicken with snow to see whether it would delay putrefaction).
Gibson, 'St. Thomas More... with a Bibliography of Utopiana', 614.

BAKER, Richard T. and H.G. SMITH

Woodfibres of some Australian Timbers...

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Alfred James Kent, Sydney, 1924. Oblong octavo, colour plates, a fine copy in original blue cloth. Baker's series of books on Australia's natural resources were produced at the pinnacle of government printing in Australia. This work, on the "suitability of timbers of NSW for paper manufacture" gives scientific data and micrographic photographs of 60 species, as foundation to "so promising an Australian industry.".

BANKS, Sir Joseph and William CURTIS

A Short Account of the Cause of the Disease in Corn...

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Printed for H.D. Symonds and Curtis London, 1805. Octavo, six engraved plates in the first work, and one folding engraved plate by Bauer in the second work; some spotting and embrowning, but a good copy in contemporary half calf (restored). One of remarkably few works by Joseph Banks to have appeared in print. Despite his general pre-eminence in scientific and enlightenment London, and despite having been one of the most prolific correspondents known, Banks was remarkably shy of print and hardly anything was published over his name.

He had a particular interest in agricultural crops. He became alerted to the increasing problem of blight in wheat and corn in 1804 and, in the face of a devastating drop in the harvest that year, worked with Franz Bauer (Ferdinand Bauer's elder brother) in examining and recording specimens in an attempt to discover the means by which the disease was transmitted. "Blight" or "rust" in wheat and corn was a problem for farmers both in England and abroad, including Australia: 'The climate of the British Isles is not the only one that is liable to the Blight in Corn... Specimens received from the Colony of New South Wales shew that considerable mischief was done to the wheat crop there in the year 1803 by a parasitic plant, very similar to the English one' (p. 19).

Banks' treatise, which was 'intended to 'awake the energies of reason' among farmers and agriculturalists willing and able to study the day-to-day progress of their crops' (Carter, Sir Joseph Banks, p. 405), was issued in various forms, both separately and, as here, as a supplement to other works. Issued here with a separate title-page, it forms an adjunct to Curtis' Practical Observations on the British Grasses. This is the third edition of Curtis' work, but the first to include Banks' treatise.

The folding plate comprises eight figures after original drawings by Bauer, which were among the first he had achieved with the aid of a microscope.
Carter, p. 172.

BANKS, Sir Joseph

A Short Account of the Cause of the Disease in Corn...

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printed for J. Harding, London, 1805. Octavo, 32 pp. including the half-title, with a folding plate; some waterstaining in lower part of most pages, mostly marginal, otherwise a good copy with the half-title in "Mackaness" morocco, with the Mackaness bookplate. One of remarkably few works published by Banks, but an apt demonstration of his wide range of scientific interest. The problems of blight in wheat and corn were a considerable problem for farmers both in England and abroad, including Australia: 'The climate of the British Isles is not the only one that is liable to the Blight in Corn... Specimens received from the Colony of New South Wales shew that considerable mischief was done to the wheat crop there in the year 1803 by a parasitic plant, very similar to the English one' (p.19).

Banks wrote this as a supplement for the fourth edition of Curtis's Practical Observations on the British Grasses, 1805, where it appeared with a separate title-page; however that printing, which has a different imprint, ran to only 14 pp. Carter (Sir Joseph Banks... guide to biographical and bibliographical sources, p. 172) identifies a separate printing like ours, but it has a different publisher (Bulmer). Ferguson notes the Curtis edition (399a) but does not record any separate publication.

The folding plate comprises eight figures, all based on original drawings by Francis Bauer, Ferdinand Bauer's elder brother.

BARRINGTON, George

A New Edition. Memoirs of George Barrington...

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M. Smith, London, 1790. Octavo, with engraved frontispiece (Barrington picking Prince Orlow's pocket at the Opera); a fine copy, uncut in modern quarter calf. Scarce: one of a number of chapbook-type publications of the early 1790s, all of which are rare, on the "Prince of Pickpockets" before his transportation to Botany Bay. This is one of three versions of the Memoirs published by M. Smith (one of them was in a much shorter form). Similar books by other publishers were described as the "Only Authentic Edition", or "The Genuine Life and Trial". All of them seem to have been quickly published catch-penny publications, the quantity of them pointing to the considerable public interest in the pickpocket.

This rash of publication in the 1790s does not mean that the books are common today: in fact this version was known to Ferguson only from the Mitchell Library copy, and no additional copies were discovered for the Addenda volume.
Ferguson, 67a; Garvey, 'George Barrington', B4.

BARRINGTON, George

A Voyage to Botany Bay...

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C. Lowndes and... H.D. Symonds, n.d. [circa 1795] & London, 1801. Octavo, engraved frontispiece andtitle vignette to the first work; a fine copy, completely uncut in original papered boards, spine partly defective, preserved in a folding cloth box. A desirable copy of an early pairing of the first two Barrington Botany Bay works; entirely as issued, uncut in original papered boards.

By the time Barrington was transported to Botany Bay on the Third Fleet of 1791, his name was legendary in England due to his daring criminal exploits. Chapbook accounts of his trial were bestsellers, and unscrupulous London publishers were quick to exploit his notoriety to market a string of books on transportation and the new colony.

The first work to bear his name was A Voyage to Botany Bay, which first appeared in 1795. A number of editions were published in this form, some dated, some undated as here; all editions are scarce. So popular was this account that A Sequel to Barrington's Voyage was issued in 1800. It was quickly reprinted in 1801, at which time the publisher then released the two works together, of which the present copy is an unusually fine example.

Although these titles were certainly not the work of Barrington, they nonetheless provided considerable detail on eighteenth-century New South Wales not available elsewhere. Their popularity points to an English public whose appetite for news of the new colony was not satisfied by the more prestigious and expensive journals of the First Fleet officers.
Garvey, 'George Barrington', AB17 & AB18; Wantrup, 26 (second work).

BARRINGTON, George

A Voyage to New South Wales...

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Printed by Thomas Dobson, Philadelphia, 1796. Duodecimo, with 2-pp. publisher's advertisements; thetext embrowned and some scattered staining but a very good unsophisticated copy, with the half-title, in original American mottled sheep, unlettered spine ruled in gilt; front hinge starting, head of spine restored. Only the second work on Australia to be published in America. This first American edition of Barrington's Voyage, in appealing and characteristic contemporary condition, is very rare; two copies are recorded at the State Library of New South Wales (Mitchell and Dixson), while the National Library has Ferguson's copy and a fourth is to be found at Monash University.

It is ironic that an essentially fraudulent work should prove to be a fundamental source for eighteenth-century American knowledge of the new settlement at Port Jackson. Eighteenth-century American voyage publications are generally acknowledged as rare: this is particularly interesting as one of only two accounts of New South Wales printed in the United States by 1800. The Philadelphia Barrington was preceded only by the exceptionally rare 1789 New York edition of Tench, of which only the National Library copy is known.
James Ford BellJCB; Ferguson, 235; Garvey, 'George Barrington', AB8; not in Sabin.

BARRINGTON, George

The Genuine Life and Trial of George Barrington...

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W. Clements & J. Sadler, London, 1791. Octavo in fours, with wood-engraved frontispiece; frontispiece cropped by an early binder, title repaired, contemporary owner's inscription in ink, partially obliterated, withal a good copy in recent quarter calf. Very rare: the second issue of this scarce pamphlet celebrating the misdeeds and famous speeches from the dock of Australia's most famous convict. This is one of the earliest and most cheaply produced of the Barrington pieces, rarely seen complete with its frontispiece which depicts Barrington picking the pocket of Townsend.

This copy is in characteristic condition for such an ephemeral work: in addition to the usual general soiling, there is a contemporary inscription - now partly cropped - in ink on the blank recto of the frontispiece: 'John Bell His Bo[ok] March 28 1797'.
Ferguson, 98a; Garvey, 'George Barrington', B11.

BARROS, Joćo de & Diogo de COUTO

Da Asia de Joáo Barros e de Diogo de Couto, Nova Ediçćo...

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Regia Officina Typographica Lisbon, 1788. 24 volumes, duodecimo, with four portraits and five folding maps; a fine crisp set in contemporary blonde speckled calf. A beautiful set of this fundamental travel book: the basis for any history of Portuguese exploration. This is the first collected edition of the "Decades" of João de Barros and Diogo de Couto, chronicling the first Portuguese discoveries in Asia, as well as Africa and Brazil.

The Portuguese historian and civil servant Barros had equipped an expedition to the Amazon, but its failure brought him to the verge of poverty. His mercantile ambitions destroyed, Barros retreated into the sanctuary of historical studies. Written at the instigation of the king, Barros first published Décadas da Asia in the middle of the sixteenth century, and it is still regarded as one of the supreme accounts of European exploration and colonisation, and famously includes work on Magellan and his discoveries in the Americas. The first volume, Asia de Ioam de Barros, was published in 1552, and the subsequent volumes of his work in 1555, 1563 and 1615. The authenticity of the fourth, published much later, has been questioned. Its vigour and scope are such that it is one of the founding works of Portuguese literature. It was continued by Diogo de Couto, royal historiographer to Phillip II, whose work is generally more critical. Couto not only furthers Barros's original discussion, but also expands on the arguments for the decline of Portuguese influence in the east.

The first eight volumes of this set consist of the four original Décadas; volume nine is a life of Barros by Manoel Severin de Faria together with an index; the remaining fourteen volumes comprise all of Couto's ensuing books, the last volume an index.

 
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