Item #80111 The Land of Promise. Being an Authentic and Impartial History of the Rise and Progress of the New British Province of South Australia; including particulars descriptive of its soil, climate, natural productions, &c. and proofs of its superiority to all other British colonies. Embracing also a full account of the South Australian Company, with hints to various classes of emigrants, and numerous letters from settlers concerning wages, provisions, their satisfaction with the colony, &c: by one who is going. John STEPHENS.
The Land of Promise. Being an Authentic and Impartial History of the Rise and Progress of the New British Province of South Australia; including particulars descriptive of its soil, climate, natural productions, &c. and proofs of its superiority to all other British colonies. Embracing also a full account of the South Australian Company, with hints to various classes of emigrants, and numerous letters from settlers concerning wages, provisions, their satisfaction with the colony, &c: by one who is going
The Land of Promise. Being an Authentic and Impartial History of the Rise and Progress of the New British Province of South Australia; including particulars descriptive of its soil, climate, natural productions, &c. and proofs of its superiority to all other British colonies. Embracing also a full account of the South Australian Company, with hints to various classes of emigrants, and numerous letters from settlers concerning wages, provisions, their satisfaction with the colony, &c: by one who is going
The Land of Promise. Being an Authentic and Impartial History of the Rise and Progress of the New British Province of South Australia; including particulars descriptive of its soil, climate, natural productions, &c. and proofs of its superiority to all other British colonies. Embracing also a full account of the South Australian Company, with hints to various classes of emigrants, and numerous letters from settlers concerning wages, provisions, their satisfaction with the colony, &c: by one who is going
The Land of Promise. Being an Authentic and Impartial History of the Rise and Progress of the New British Province of South Australia; including particulars descriptive of its soil, climate, natural productions, &c. and proofs of its superiority to all other British colonies. Embracing also a full account of the South Australian Company, with hints to various classes of emigrants, and numerous letters from settlers concerning wages, provisions, their satisfaction with the colony, &c: by one who is going

The Land of Promise. Being an Authentic and Impartial History of the Rise and Progress of the New British Province of South Australia; including particulars descriptive of its soil, climate, natural productions, &c. and proofs of its superiority to all other British colonies. Embracing also a full account of the South Australian Company, with hints to various classes of emigrants, and numerous letters from settlers concerning wages, provisions, their satisfaction with the colony, &c: by one who is going

London, Smith, Elder, and Co., 1839 [first edition].

Octavo, viii, 224, [9] ('Land of Promise Advertising Sheet') pages plus a folding frontispiece map ('Part of Southern Australia from the 132 to 141 degree of East Longitude', with an inset map of Australia, 195 × 250 mm), a folding plan of the City of Adelaide (255 × 205 mm), a folding table of emigrant ships and 4 zinc-engraved topographical views (two after William Light and one each after William Westall and Captain Pearson).

Original gilt-decorated blind-stamped slate-blue cloth, all edges uncut; cloth a little rubbed and bumped at the extremities, with the spine lightly sunned and marked, with minimal expert restoration to the head; a few uncut edges a little creased; some offsetting from an illustration in one of the advertisements; an excellent copy.

Ferguson 2850 (calling the shipping table a plate). The frontispiece map, a zinc engraving, very closely resembles the one in 'Colonization of South Australia' by Robert Torrens (1835), as well as the Arrowsmith map in the 'First Annual Report of the Colonization Commissioners of South Australia' (1836 - see item 4 in this catalogue). This copy is inscribed to 'Edmund J. Wheeler / from the author / 21 Decr 1838' on the verso of the initial blank; Wheeler was the London manager of the South Australian Company. John Stephens (1806-1850), newspaper editor, was employed 'about 1838 [by] George Fife Angas ... to write emigration propaganda. Stephens's first notable work was "The Land of Promise", republished in 1839 as "The History of the Rise and Progress of the New British Province of South Australia". In that year his exposure of absurdities in T. Horton James, "Six Months in South Australia" (London, 1839), ran to three editions. He also edited the "South Australian Colonist", on which Angas lost heavily; it was replaced in 1841 by the monthly "South Australian News" at a cheaper rate' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography': the too-short entry is well worth reading).

Item #80111

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