Rare: all published. The beautifully drawn and handcoloured plates of The Entomology of Australia make it one of the finest of all Australian illustrated natural history books, and one of a very select group of important colour-plate books on Australian natural history issued before 1840; others in this category include the famous books by Smith (catalogue number 38) and Lewin (catalogue numbers 28-30). Gray's was the second separately published work on Australian entomology.

Rare: all published. The beautifully drawn and handcoloured plates of The Entomology of Australia make it one of the finest of all Australian illustrated natural history books, and one of a very select group of important colour-plate books on Australian natural history issued before 1840; others in this category include the famous books by Smith (catalogue number 38) and Lewin (catalogue numbers 28-30). Gray's was the second separately published work on Australian entomology.

George Gray (1808-72) was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years. Although he never visited Australia he compiled and illustrated this book from specimens and information sent to him by the prominent colonial residents, William Sharp Macleay and Phillip Parker King. He also worked from species in Joseph Banks's Collection, held in the British Museum.

A prolific writer, Gray dedicated his book to the Duke of Sussex. Although the plan was for the entire work to be funded by subscription, the list published here shows that there were only twenty-eight subscribers: as a result very few copies were published, explaining the book's rarity, and the further parts originally planned by Gray did not eventuate. Ferguson notes that the monograph also includes an interesting bibliography of works relating to Australian insects.