The History of New Holland, from its First Discovery in 1616, to the Present Time (First Edition)

A$6,500 · Offered by Harry Hartog Rare Books

First edition

[ANONYMOUS] (erroneously attributed to The Right Honourable William Eden). The History of New Holland, from its First Discovery in 1616, to the Present Time. With a Particular Account of its Produce and Inhabitants; and a Description of Botany Bay: Also, a List of the Naval, Marine, Military, and Civil Establishment. London: Printed for John Stockdale, 1787. Octavo. Two-tone mottled calf. Spine titled in gilt on brown Morocco panel. Edges speckled blue. xxiv, 254, [ii] pp. Two folding hand-coloured maps: A General Chart of the Passage from England to Botany Bay in New Holland 1787 , and A New Chart of New Holland on which are delineated New South Wales and a Plan of Botany Bay . First edition. Armorial bookplate of William Strickland of Boynton to front pastedown; bookplate of Milton Whitmont to front free endpaper. Bibliographic references: Ferguson 24; Holmes 66. One of the earliest and most historically significant accounts of Australia published in the English language. Predating Cook's famous account of 1789, this volume appeared in the same year the First Fleet departed England, written specifically to satisfy the enormous public curiosity generated by the announcement of the Botany Bay settlement scheme. Formally, its true author remains anonymous. The attribution to the Right Honourable William Eden that appears on the title page, and that has followed the book through more than two centuries of bookselling and cataloguing, is now understood by bibliographers to be a

• Binding: Hardcover

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