Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser. Sunday, April 28, 1805. Vol. III, Number 113, together with an example of the signature of George Howe, the printer and publisher

A$6,000 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Sydney : George Howe, 1805. Bifolium, quarto, 280 x 222 mm, printed on laid paper, text in 3 columns; original horizontal and vertical folds, insect damage with loss, extensively and comprehensively conserved with gampi (Japanese tissue), presented with a cut signature of George Howe, the printer. Due to its ephemeral nature and tiny circulation numbers, there are very few surviving copies of the early issues of the Sydney Gazette. As Ferguson (383) notes, Complete volumes of the early years of the Sydney Gazette are very rare, and even single numbers prior to 1820 do not often occur in the market. The Sydney Gazette was first printed by George Howe on a small wooden printing press which had been brought to the colony by Arthur Phillip in the First Fleet. David Collins (Account of the English Colony in New South Wales) noted in November 1795 that a young printer, George Hughes, had used the press to print a handful of government notices and orders. Copies of some of these ephemeral printed items are held in the Record Office, London (Ferguson, Foster Green. The Howes and their press, p.15). This almost certainly makes Hughes responsible for the very earliest Australian imprints (Ferguson, ibid.). George Howe had used the same press to print the colony s first book, The New South Wales General Standing Orders, in 1802, probably confirming him as the colony s second printer. As examples of neither George Hughes’ ephemeral printings nor Howe’s The New South Wales General Standin

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.