Thursday, Mar 26, 2026

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“HORDERN HOUSE of Sydney, Australia, is also in the process of issuing a series of catalogues of a major collection; two have appeared so far. The Whitmont Collection, like John Porter’s Pickering collection, was assembled over decades, eight in this case, and by three generations of a Sydney family rather than by a single individual. The collection consists of 18th and 19th-century printed books, manuscripts and other artefacts illustrating the earliest history of Australia’s discovery and exploration by European nations. The catalogues are A4 in format and copiously illustrated throughout, with at least one full-page colour photograph of each item alongside a detailed description and bibliography. Given the historical significance and rarity of almost every item, it is no surprise to find that many prices are at a level far above any other catalogue reviewed here. Of the eighty items listed between the two catalogues, no fewer than fifteen have asking prices in excess of A$100,000. Both catalogues list items beyond the scope of the main interests of The Book Collector, and indeed the highest price of all, A$750,000, is reserved for a c.1792 watercolour by Thomas Watling of the Banksian Cockatoo (Cat. 1, no. 38); a chronometer, compass, medals and a mourning ring are also included. Pride of place among the books is taken by A Catalogue of the Different Specimens of Cloth, the bound selection of tapa cloth samples collected on Captain Cook’s three voyages, in its first edition of 1787 (Cat. 1, no. 15). Now an extraordinary rarity and known in only a small number of copies, this is A$325,000. Not far behind are two more extremely rare works: the first is Bauer’s 1813 Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae, a stunning botanical work estimated to have been published in fewer than fifty copies. The copy here most unusually contains two sets of the fifteen botanical plates, one set coloured and the other not; this is Cat. 1, no. 7, at A$275,000. No. 5 in the same catalogue is Freycinet’s Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes, published in two volumes in 1812 and 1815 following Nicolas Baudin’s voyage of discovery of 1800-1804. The quarto volume was the first hydrographic survey of Australian waters, while the accompanying folio volume constitutes the first atlas of Australia. The outstanding copy here is bound in contemporary red morocco, heavily decorated in gilt (A$260,000). Elsewhere in the catalogues there is a superb selection of letters and other manuscript documents. Perhaps the most notable is Cat. 1 no. 13, a letter dictated and signed by Captain James Cook to the Navy Commissioners from the Endeavour on 12 July 1771, the date of his expedition’s return to England. This is thought to be the only Cook letter offered for sale in decades, apart from another also offered by Hordern House twenty-five years ago. Item 9 in the same catalogue is a collection of six autograph letters from Thomas Burgess, one of the Royal Marines who accompanied Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle between 1831 and 1836. Three of the letters, all to the Marine’s father, are from that voyage, and are the only such known from a crew member, while the others are from Burgess’s other expeditions; the group is offered for A$125,000. An 1845 autograph letter from Darwin himself about Australian fossils is no. 18 in Cat. 1, priced A$85,000, while in the second catalogue, no. 3 is an 1807 au-tograph letter from (former Captain) William Bligh to the Commandant of Norfolk Island, while Bligh was Governor of New South Wales. These two catalogues contain many items of the greatest importance in the early history of Australia’s European exploration, and we hope they will all find good homes.”