Colonization of South Australia
London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1836 (second edition)/ 1835.
Octavo, [iii]-xvi (lacking the half-title), 303, [1] (blank), xcvii pages plus a folding frontispiece map (200 × 250 mm, hand-coloured in outline).
Later (but probably still nineteenth-century) blind-ruled half morocco and maroon cloth, lettered and ruled in gilt on the spine, all edges uncut, with marbled endpapers; leather a little sunned and scuffed; cloth lightly foxed and a little unevenly discoloured; map and title page foxed and offset, with occasional light foxing elsewhere; very light and unobtrusive tidemark to some leading margins; short tears to three leaves expertly sealed; minor ink offsetting to two early pages (almost certainly a production flaw); mild signs of use and age; a very good copy.
Robert Torrens (1780-1864), 'officer of marines, political economist and colonization commissioner ... [whose] economic writings are of much importance in the development of economic theory' ('Dictionary of National Biography'). When this work was published, he was the Chairman of the Colonization Commission for South Australia. There are three important appendices new to this edition: 'Paper circulated by the Colonization Commissioners for South Australia' (13 pages); 'Report of the Speeches delivered at a Dinner given to Captain John Hindmarsh RN, on his Appointment as Governor of South Australia. To which is appended, an Answer to an Article in the Forty-Fifth Number of the "Westminster Review", by C. Mann, Esq.' (48 pages); and 'Self-supporting Emigration ... by R. Torrens ... Reprinted from No. XX of "The Pamphleteer", 1817' (13 pages). Provenance: the Hobill Cole copy, with his nameplate on the front pastedown. Frank Hobill Cole (1863-1934), paediatrician, 'collected Australian paintings and literature with discernment. He was said to have the best local collection of books on the discovery and exploration of Australasia. His paintings were sold by auction in 1923, probably because his circumstances changed with the progressive development of Parkinson's disease' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography').
Item #110291
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