Wine-Growing in Australia, and the Teaching of Modern Writers on Vine-Culture and Wine-Making
Adelaide, E.S. Wigg, 1867.
Octavo, viii, 234 pages with 6 small in-text line illustrations.
Original brown stippled cloth (lettered in gilt on the spine) lightly marked and bumped, and a little rubbed at the extremities; speckled edges a little foxed, with moderate foxing to the endpapers and adjacent leaves; early related newspaper cuttings mounted on both sides of the front flyleaf, the (blank?) verso of the title, and page [vi] (blank); early ownership details on the front pastedown; minor signs of use and age; overall a very good copy.
Scottish-born Dr Alexander Kelly (1811-1877) arrived in South Australia in 1841; he soon gave up medical practice for agricultural pursuits, and by the late 1840s had a vineyard of eight acres. His experimentation and practical experience over the next decade enabled him to publish two books that for many years 'were the standard texts in Australia for progressive wine-growers, because Dr Kelly imported oenological knowledge from Europe, tested it in practice, translated it and made it available to his fellow settlers'. This work 'is a comparative and critical presentation of authoritative writings on current problems and areas of disagreement between wine-growers'. (We recommend you to the biography of Dr Kelly by Valmai Hankel and Dennis Hall, contained in the 1980 facsimile reprints of this work and Dr Kelly's 1861 book, 'The Vine in Australia').
Item #118465
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