Item #112782 Wanderings in New South Wales, Batavia, Pedir Coast, Singapore, and China; being the Journal of a Naturalist in those Countries, during 1832, 1833, and 1834. George BENNETT.
Wanderings in New South Wales, Batavia, Pedir Coast, Singapore, and China; being the Journal of a Naturalist in those Countries, during 1832, 1833, and 1834

Wanderings in New South Wales, Batavia, Pedir Coast, Singapore, and China; being the Journal of a Naturalist in those Countries, during 1832, 1833, and 1834

London, Richard Bentley, 1834.

Octavo, two volumes, xvi (last blank), 440, [2] (verso blank - an addendum to the information on page 13 re preserving specimens), [2] (publisher's advertisements], [4] (small octavo, the prospectus to the fifth edition of Dods' 'The Cook and Housewife's Manual) pages; and viii (last unnumbered, with an additional erratum noted), 428 pages with several illustrations throughout plus a frontispiece in each volume, and an errata slip (for both volumes) tipped in at the first page of the first volume.

Original plain papered boards later rebacked in matching paper, with (possibly) the original paper title-labels on the spines, all edges uncut; boards a little marked, with minor wear to the extremities; frontispieces offset onto the title pages; sporadic foxing (moderate in places); mild signs of use and age; overall a very good set with the early ownership signatures in pencil of J.W. [?] Were Clarke.

Approximately 300 pages of the first volume are devoted to Bennett's journeyings in New South Wales in 1832-33. George Bennett (1804-1893), medical practitioner and naturalist, 'had first visited Australia in 1829. He did so again in 1832, arriving in spring and becoming immediately impressed by "the beauties of the Kingdom of Flora which are lavished so profusely in this colony". Travels inland followed', as recorded in these volumes, 'a work of merit for its good writing and generally sound observation; his only serious slip was in regard to the nesting habits of the lyrebird, upon which he was apparently misled by Aboriginals.... He returned again to Australia in 1836, and this time he remained, developing a successful medical practice in Sydney and becoming a leading figure in the newly established Australian Museum, the Acclimatization Society and the Zoological Society' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography').

Item #112782

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