A Biographical Sketch of Colonel William Light, the Founder of Adelaide and the First Surveyor-General of the Province of South Australia. Compiled from various sources by Thomas Gill .... Enlarged edition, with portraits, maps, illustrations, and facsimiles. Also, a supplement containing a facsimile reprint of Col. Light's Brief Journal, and his reasons for fixing the City of Adelaide where it is
Adelaide, Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, South Australian Branch (and printed by R.E.E. Rogers, Government Printer), 1911 [enlarged edition].
Octavo, [viii], 108, [vi], 84 pages (printed on handmade paper), plus 16 pages of plates, 2 folding maps and 2 folding facsimile documents.
Gilt-pictorial vellum, top edge gilt, others uncut and unopened; one opening slightly tanned from the ribbon marker; a fine copy in the original plain paper dustwrapper (a little sunned and torn, with the title added later in ink on the spine).
Number 190 of only 200 copies numbered and signed by Thomas Gill. This is a deluxe, enlarged edition of a work first published as the Supplement to Volume 11 of the Proceedings of the RGSSA in the same year. The extra material includes text, maps and facsimile documents. We have only encountered the dustwrapper once before, and the small oval label of the 'Government Printing Office, Adelaide, S.A.' (gilt on red cloth) mounted on the rear pastedown is uncommon in our experience. Loosely inserted are two interesting pieces of ephemera indicating that this was one of several copies offered for sale by ballot to members of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (South Australian Branch) in 1978. The Society was the original publisher, and it purchased the author's collection after his death in 1923, so these retained copies - released nearly 70 years after the work was published - could have come from either source.
Item #145731
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