Colonial Sketches, or, Five Years in South Australia, with Hints to Capitalists and Emigrants
London, Hall, Virtue & Co., 1862.
Duodecimo, viii, 167, [1] (colophon) pages.
Blind-stamped dark green ribbed cloth lettered in gilt on the spine; covers slightly rubbed and bumped at the extremities; top edge uncut and a little dusty; paper a little tanned (as usual); trifling signs of age and handling, but overall an excellent copy.
'I was offered some time before leaving South Australia, strong inducements to write a history of that virtuous territory which should be palatable to certain classes of a small community; but as I had no high opinion of either the colony or the principles on which it was founded, or its subsequent career, I could not be the partisan, at any price, of a locality which I could not conscientiously recommend as a suitable field of emigration for any class of my fellow-country-men' (author's preface, although he showed the cut of his nib on the title page: 'Castigat ridendo mores'). Indeed, nothing is sacred, so it is perhaps hardly surprising to learn that 'every copy available was purchased and destroyed by the Angas family' (Ferguson 10265, citing a note in the Petherick copy in the National Library of Australia).
Item #141503
Price (AUD):
$750.00