The Narrinyeri. An Account of the Tribes of South Australian Aborigines inhabiting the Country around the Lakes Alexandrina, Albert, and Coorong, and the Lower Part of the River Murray: their Manners and Customs, also an Account of the Mission at Port Macleay
Adelaide, E.S. Wigg & Son, 1878 (second edition, revised).
Octavo (225 x 145 mm), viii, 156 pages plus 6 tinted lithographs new to this edition.
Red cloth lettered in gilt on the front cover and spine, decorated in blind on the front and rear boards, with three gilt rules at the head and foot of the spine; cloth lightly rubbed at the extremities, and slightly ink-marked at the front and rear; spine sunned, flecked and a little marked, with light wear to the head and minor loss to the foot; inner hinges neatly reinforced with cloth tape; a very good copy (internally fine).
The first edition was published in 1874; it contains only one illustration, the frontispiece. This is an original Townsend Duryea albumen paper photograph, a composite of five numbered oval portraits; the identification key is printed on the verso of the title page. See Ferguson 16706 (not identifying the photographer, and not indicating that the five photographic portraits are in fact one composite photograph). This revised second edition (Ferguson 16707) contains six tinted lithographs, the second one of which is based on the Duryea composite photograph (and there is no obvious key to the identities of the subjects). Taplin makes some interesting observations in his preface to this edition: 'The reader will find that some additions have been made to the book. An account has been given of the Aboriginal Council, called the Tendi, by which the clans of the Narrinyeri are governed. Some friends of the Mission complained that the history of the Mission at Point Macleay was too short, and expressed their desire that more incidents had been related. An attempt has been made to supply this deficiency by inserting some extracts from the author's diary'. Ferguson does not make it clear that it is the revised second edition of this work which appears in the 1879 collection of reprints, 'The Native Tribes of South Australia' (Ferguson 13095). In our experience, this stand-alone 1878 edition is rare.
Item #106058
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