Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia ... during the Years 1844, 5 and 6. Together with a Notice of the Province of South Australia, in 1847
London, T. and W. Boone, 1849 [first edition, slightly later issue].
Octavo, two volumes, x, iv, [5]-416, 8 (publisher's advertisements) pages with 12 illustrations plus 8 plates (2 tinted, 2 hand-coloured), a folding map (with rivers and Sturt's tracks in three colours), and an advertising slip for Stokes tipped in after page x); and vi, 308, 92, [4] (prospectus for Siborne), 8 (publisher's advertisements) pages with 6 illustrations plus 8 plates (2 hand-coloured) and an advertising slip for Leichhardt tipped in on page [1]. The woodcut illustrations on page 158 in the first volume, and on pages 195 and 195 in the second volume are not noted in the plate list; the hand-coloured plates, three of birds and one of Mus conditor, 'The Building Rat', are from original artwork by John Gould and Henry Richter.
Original blind-stamped green ribbed cloth (the primary binding), rebacked (not professionally, but more than adequately, retaining the original backstrips and endpapers); cloth a little worn at the extremities, stained, and sunned on the spines (with minor loss at the foot of the second one); the first volume has the front inner hinge reinforced, the bottom corner of the free endpaper torn away, slight loss near the foot of the front hinge, the rear free endpaper removed, and the rear pastedown stained; the second volume has slight loss to the restored front inner hinge, and a few light stains to both endpapers; tidemarks to some plates (not the hand-coloured ones, and minor in all cases except the first frontispiece); brown stain to the bottom corner tips of some leaves in each volume (most of them from pages 71-100, including a plate, in the first volume, and from pages 141-164 in the second volume, but touching the text on one leaf only, and rarely larger than a thumbnail elsewhere); short sealed tears to the leading margin of pages 27-52 in the appendix to the second volume; minimal signs of age and use (including a partially erased word on one page, and some words offset onto the last page of advertising, in the first volume); overall a very decent set.
Provenance: George Woodroofe Goyder, with the pastedown of each volume inscribed in his hand 'Hill Side Cottage | Medindie | April 1858'. George Woodroofe Goyder (1826-1898), South Australia's surveyor-general for thirty-three years, is best remembered for the eponymous Goyder's Line, 'the line of demarcation between that portion of the country where the rainfall has extended, and that where the drought prevails' (a line of reliable rainfall that separates agricultural from pastoral lands). 'Goyder joined the Department of Lands as chief clerk in January 1853. In quick stages he rose from second assistant to assistant surveyor-general in January 1857. In April he took charge of an exploration to report on country north of pastoral settlement. He was amazed to find Lake Torrens full of fresh water and its flourishing eastern surroundings very different from the desert described by Edward Eyre in 1839. His exuberant report persuaded the surveyor-general, Captain (Sir) Arthur Freeling, to examine the area in September. No more rain had fallen but hot winds had killed the vegetation and turned the lake into a bed of mud. Freeling returned to criticize Goyder for mistaking flood for permanent water, being misled by mirage and misconceiving the value of the northern country. Although Goyder had proved that Eyre's horseshoe of salt lakes was penetrable and thereby opened the way to further exploration, he was too conscientious to ignore his blunder and in 1859 at his own request led survey parties to triangulate the country between Lakes Torrens and Eyre and to sink wells. When Freeling resigned Goyder was recalled from the north to become surveyor-general on 19 January 1861' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). Goyder married in 1851; by 1856, the family with four children moved from rented accommodation in North Adelaide 'a short distance across the parklands to Medindie ... [into] a "neat cottage", with six rooms, a garden and a vineyard ... Named Hillside, the cottage was located on a private road (now Hawkers Road) close to Robe Terrace overlooking the parklands' (Janis Sheldrick: 'Nature's Line. George Goyder - Surveyor, Environmentalist, Visionary', 2013). It is intriguing to discover that Goyder acquired a set of Sturt's account of his 1844-46 Central Australian expedition in search of an inland sea in April 1858, the year after his own expedition to Lake Torrens. 'The expedition started by following the Murray and Darling, both to settle any doubt about the confluence of the two rivers and to avoid the "horseshoe" of Lake Torrens which had halted Eyre's progress a few years before' (Wantrup), and confounded Goyder himself in 1857. Wantrup 119 (noting the point that distinguishes the first issue, an inserted advertisement for Melville immediately following the text in the first volume: 'this leaf was suppressed shortly after publication of Sturt's book'). [2 items].
Item #119606
Price (AUD):
$4,000.00