The History of New South Wales…
The History of New South Wales including Botany Bay, Port Jackson, Parramatta, Sydney, and all its Dependencies.
London: M. Jones, 1802.
Octavo, with an engraved title page and 14 hand-coloured plates (including frontispiece), untrimmed, with all of the preliminaries noted by Garvey (bound out of order, as often) and with an additional "To our Subscribers" leaf not recorded, crushed blue half morocco gilt by Bayntun.
The first book to contain coloured views of Sydney
A handsome copy of this important "Barrington" title, now famous as the first book to contain a suite of coloured illustrations of Sydney, the views in David Collins' Account, on which they are based, having been published in black and white.
A handsome copy of this important "Barrington" title, now famous as the first book to contain a suite of coloured illustrations of Sydney, the views in David Collins' Account, on which they are based, having been published in black and white.
Transported to New South Wales on the Third Fleet of 1791, Barrington was already a legendary hero in England. The English public's continuing interest in New South Wales and the fate of the transported convicts encouraged the publishers' greed: they compiled information from various sources more official sources to make these cheaper and thus more widely read accounts. It is quite reasonable to suggest that the little most people in Great Britain knew about New South Wales derived chiefly from one or another of the Barrington books.
This 1802 publication is easily one of the most important of the scores of different Barrington titles, "an ambitious and elaborate 'new' work, published in tandem with an expanded version of the Voyage. The text was for the most part a plagiaristic rewriting of David Collins' Account of the English Colony in New South Wales. Along with other preliminary materials ventriloquising 'Barrington's' increasingly grandiose aims as a colonial historian, the work included a dedication to the King" (Garvey). The preface claims justifiably that "no prior attempt has been made to produce a complete history of the Country itself, from its discovery, and an account of its inhabitants, their customs and manners…".
Although collation of the work is complex, this copy not only has all of the various preliminaries and prefaces noted by Garvey, it also includes an extra leaf "To our Subscribers" which appears to be quite uncommon, and which advertises "Mr. Barrington's Voyage to New South Wales" in suitably fulsome tones. This copy has the second issue title-page with "Parramatta" corrected.
Ferguson, 345; Garvey AB29b.
Condition Report: In very good condition
Price (AUD): $2,750.00
US$1,751.65 Other currencies