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a Fresh, coloureD coPY oF a First Fleet account that is ‘oF KeY iMPortance to anY collection oF australiana anD is essential to a collection oF FounDation BooKs’
311.WHite, John. Journal of a Voyage to new south Wales. [?edited by thomas Wilson.] London: J. Debrett, 1790. £7,950
Folio (297 x 233mm). contemporary British full speckled calf gilt, boards with borders of double gilt rules, spine gilt in compartments, gilt morocco lettering-piece in one, others with central star tools, marbled endpapers, board-edges and turn-ins roll-tooled in gilt, all edges yellow; pp. [16 (dedication, advertisement, verso blank, list of subscribers, blank p., list of plates, blank p.)], 299, [1 (blank p.)], [35 (‘a Diary of the Winds, Weather, temperature of the air, &c. with the Different latitudes and longitudes, in a Voyage to Port Jackson, new south Wales’)], [1 (blank p.)]; engraved title with vignette view of Port Jackson by t. Milton after White, and 65 hand-coloured engraved plates after sarah stone, Frederick Polydor nodder, edward Kennion, charles catton the younger, Mortimer, et al.; slightly rubbed and scuffed, skilfully rebacked retaining original spine, slight cracking on upper joint, endpapers relaid, occasional and very light offsetting or spotting, 2e1-2 with very light marginal marking, nonetheless a very good and fresh copy in a contemporary binding; provenance: ‘hBi’ (late 19th-/early 20th-century bookplate on upper pastedown over earlier, partially-removed bookplate) — sale, christie’s london, 21 september 2005, lot 295.
First edition, the coloured issue. the surgeon John White (?1756-1832), joined the royal navy in 1778 as the third surgeon’s mate on hMs Wasp. he was awarded the diploma of the company of surgeons in 1781, and served on various ships around the globe, before becoming surgeon of hMs Irresistible on 26 June 1786. in october of that year, he was appointed chief surgeon of the expedition to found a penal settlement at Botany Bay: ‘of almost 1500 people in the eleven ships of the First Fleet 778 were convicts, many in poor health from long imprisonment. it is to the credit of White and his assistants that on the voyage of more than eight months there were only thirty-four deaths. outbreaks of scurvy and dysentery and lack of accommodation for the sick were his first problems in the new colony. Within a year the incidence of sickness was greatly decreased, a hospital was built, and White, a keen amateur naturalist, found time to accompany governor arthur Phillip on two journeys of exploration. [...] on joining the First Fleet White had begun to keep a journal, in which he made many notes of birds examined in the colony. in november 1788 he sent this to a london friend, thomas Wilson; edited probably by Wilson it was published in 1790 as Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales. accompanying the text were sixty-five engravings illustrating the natural history and products of the colony, drawn in england from specimens sent by White, with descriptions by english specialists. he also sent drawings and possibly specimens for The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay (london, 1789). his own book was a big success. a german edition followed, and later there were translations into swedish and French’ (aDB). White’s Journal has become firmly established as a fundamental First Fleet account — Wantrup considers that it is ‘of key importance to any collection of australiana and is essential to a collection of Foundation books’ (p. 78) — but is also of great importance as a natural history book: ‘Whilst White’s interest in natural history was typical of his time and class, he brought to it a zeal and an enthusiasm that were not at all typical [...] as might be expected, John White’s journal includes much detailed observation of animal and, above all, of bird life in the colony. in its published form his account is graced by sixty-five engraved plates, all but one of which illustrate the natural history of new south Wales. some of these engravings are based on drawings sent back from the colony — a number by the “Port Jackson Painter” — but most were made in england’ (Wantrup pp. 72-74). the accompanying descriptions of the natural history plates were written by others: those for the mammals were written by the sometime governor John hunter (1737-1821), those for the other animals by the natural historian and co-founder of the linnean society george shaw (1751-1813, possibly with the assistance of thomas Wilson), and those of plants by the eminent natural historian, and co-founder and president of the linnean society, sir James edward smith (1759-1828); together, as the oDnB records in its article on shaw, they provided ‘the first systematic description of the natural wonders of the new continent’.
this work was issued in both uncoloured and coloured copies (as here) and its bibliography is complex, since a number of issues and variations have been identified: in this copy some of the plates are printed on paper with a ‘J. Whatman’ watermark — confirming that the colour is original and genuine — and the artist’s engraved name is visible in the majority of the plates. this copy does not include the final two leaves of advertisements printed on a separate half-sheet and, as Wantrup states, they ‘were not issued in all copies and many, perhaps most, copies appear to lack them’ (p. 74). the first page of the list of plates is in Wantrup’s third state, with a full stop after the title and the second plate correctly listed (‘copies with this page in either the first or the intermediate state are very rare’, p. 75); the list of subscribers is present; and leaf 2h4 is a cancellans, with the second state of p. 240 bearing a description of the female Wattled Bee-eater (Wantrup judges that copies with the uncancelled leaf are ‘not rare’, p. 77).
BM(NH) V, p. 2390; Brunet V, col. 1439; ESTC T113529; Ferguson 97; Lowndes p. 2900; Nissen, ZBI 4390; Wantrup no. 17 with pp. 72-78; Wood p. 626; Zimmer pp. 672-673.
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