Linda Groom
First Fleet Artist: George Raper's Birds & Plants of Australia
Hardcover, 290 x 240 mm, 146pp, colour illustrations.
Book of the Month May 2009
Australian: $49.95 (Approx. US $52, Euro €40)
ISBN 9780642276810
Worldwide 7 - 10 days, Australia 3 - 7 business days
About the Book
In George Raper, midshipman on the Sirius of the First Fleet, talent and opportunity magnificently coalesced to produce what is now one of the National Library of Australia's most treasured collections, the Ducie Collection of First Fleet Art. Raper's enviable ability to observe and depict the captivating beauty of Australian birds and plants was heightened by his youthful enthusiasm for the novelty of what he witnessed. In telling Raper's story, Groom adds an entirely new dimension to our understanding of the First Fleet experience and the life of a junior officer in the British Navy. Containing full-colour illustrations of the complete Ducie Collection, this volume gives substance to the previously shadowy figure of Raper: a young man whose adventurous spirit and extraordinary insight into the natural world bequeathed to Australia a superlative legacy.
About the Author
Linda Groom is head of the Pictures Collection at the National Library of Australia. She was part of the team that 'discovered' these previously unknown masterpieces.