Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, with Sixty-five Plates of Nondescript Animals, Birds, Lizards, Serpents, Curious Cones of Trees and other Natural Productions
London, Printed for J. Debrett, 1790.
Quarto, [xvi] (Dedication, Advertisement, List of Subscribers and List of Plates), 300, [35] ('Diary of Winds, Weather ... &c. ... in a Voyage to Port Jackson') pages plus the engraved title leaf with vignette and 65 full-page engraved plates. This copy has leaves Hh4 and Kk4 in their cancelled state, as usual, and the List of Plates in its third, corrected, state; bound without the terminal advertisements (not integral, and not issued with all copies).
Handsomely bound in full morocco by Lewis and Harris of Bath; spine gilt in compartments; sides bordered in gilt; inner gilt dentelles; sides lightly scuffed; tiny split near the foot of the front joint; text block slightly trimmed when rebound (but still a very well-margined copy); title a little marked and foxed, with an early ink ownership signature (shaved); some light foxing to the plates (generally confined to the blank margins), with moderate to heavy foxing affecting approximately a dozen plates; some offsetting from the plates onto the text leaves; small ink annotation to the margin of one leaf; a very good copy.
Chief surgeon on the voyage and Surgeon General of the new colony, White was also an enthusiastic amateur naturalist. The superb plates of Australian animals and plants illustrating the scientific descriptions in the appendix to this important First Fleet journal were done in England by significant natural history artists including Sarah Stone and Frederick Nodder (from specimens sent by White), or after sketches done in the colony by White, or convict artists under his supervision. Ferguson 97; Wantrup 17; Hill 1858.
Item #114120
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