HORDERN HOUSE RARE BOOKS • MANUSCRIPTS • PAINTINGS • PRINTS A second selection of fine books, maps & graphic material chiefly from THE COLLECTION OF ROBERT EDWARDS AO VOLUME II With a particular focus on inland and coastal exploration in the nineteenth century 77 VICTORIA STREET • POTTS POINT • SYDNEY NSW 2011 • AUSTRALIA TELEPHONE (02) 9356 4411 • FAX (02) 9357 3635 www.hordern.com • [email protected] AN AUSTRALIAN JOURNEY A second volume of Australian books from the collection of Robert Edwards AO n the first large catalogue of books from the library This second volume describes 242 books, almost all of Robert Edwards, published in 2012, we included 19th-century, with just five earlier titles and a handful of a foreword which gave some biographical details of 20th-century books. The subject of the catalogue might IRobert as a significant and influential figure in Australia’s loosely be called Australian Life: the range of subjects modern cultural history. is wide, encompassing politics and policy, exploration, the Australian Aborigines, emigration, convicts and We also tried to provide a picture of him as a collector transportation, the British Parliament and colonial policy, who over many decades assembled an exceptionally wide- with material relating to all the Australian states and ranging and beautiful library with knowledge as well as territories. A choice selection of view books adds to those instinct, and with an unerring taste for condition and which were described in the earlier catalogue with fine importance. In the early years he blazed his own trail with examples of work by Angas, Gill, Westmacott and familiar this sort of collecting, and contributed to the noticeable names such as Leichhardt and Franklin rubbing shoulders shift in biblio-connoisseurship which has marked modern with all manner of explorers, surgeons, historians and other collecting. rogues. During this time Robert built close friendships not just In that earlier catalogue we offered “significant material with this firm but with most Australian booksellers and a on the early Australian colonies, with a particular focus number of dealers overseas. All of those who have known on inland and coastal exploration in the first century of him over that time will no doubt recognise some of the settlement”. books in this catalogue, and will certainly be familiar with Robert Edwards’ very particular style of collecting. Before that, in July 2011 we described 50 books in a list of “Sydney Printers before 1860”; for the Melbourne bookfair The Edwards collection is emphatically not one limited in July 2012 we catalogued another 50 books as Robert’s to high-spots; like Brighton rock it is good all the way “Port Phillip collection”. through. In selecting books for this next substantial offering we found ourselves spoiled for choice. In trying to define All of these catalogues are available online, and in some how we came to this selection we realise that these are the cases we can provide printed copies. books that looked so attractive or interesting – or both – on Hordern House the shelf that they came easily to the hand. The reader will, we hope, find a great many books to interest them, a few Sydney, 2013. surprises, and that even the more modest titles have much to recommend them. Detail of Sydney to Port Phillip map from no. 2, 1839 report. MACQUARIE, BRISBANE & DARLING ON SCHOOLS FOR ABORIGINES 1. [ABORIGINES] BRITISH PARLIAMENT. Copies of Instructions… for promoting the Moral and Religious Instruction of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of New Holland or Van Diemen’s Land. Foolscap folio, 19 pp.; a very good copy in later half roan, spine lettered in gilt. London, 23 September, 1831. An excellent copy of a rare report, printing a decade of major dispatches from New South Wales Governors on the subjects of the Aborigines of New South Wales. In this report are included reports from Macquarie, Brisbane and several by Darling. Macquarie reports the Reverend Cartwright’s “Native Institution” at Parramatta (in a report which prints two of Cartwright’s letters, dated 1819 & 1820), while the despatches of Brisbane and Darling chiefly deal with the work of the London and Church Missionary Societies, most notably the travails of the Missionary and early linguist L.E. Threlkeld (including comments on his work in preparing grammars and translations). The work was prepared at the request of Henry Grey, Viscount Howick, in his capacity as Under-Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. $1300 MYALL CREEK, PORT PHILLIP, OVERLANDING IN NSW 2. [ABORIGINES] BRITISH PARLIAMENT. Copies or Extracts of Despatches relative to the Massacre of various Aborigines of Australia in the Year 1838… Foolscap folio, 56 pp., folding map by Arrowsmith of “Proposed Military Posts between Sydney and Port Phillip”; some offsetting but an excellent copy in full red crushed morocco by Sangorski. London, Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 1839. An important report on conflicts between settlers and Aborigines in the previous decade, and the first such report issued by the British government. It includes much on the Myall Creek Massacre, the killing of up to 30 men, women and children by stockmen on Henry Dangar’s Myall Creek Station in June 1838. The trial of the perpetrators convulsed New South Wales, but very little beyond newspaper reports was ever published, underlining the importance of this rare government report. The report prints a series of dispatches from Governors Bourke and Gipps, and includes an extraordinary map which ostensibly serves to show the proposed overland route and military post between Sydney and Melbourne (approximately the route of the Hume), but which has a couple of printed notes on the approximate location of points of conflict, including the “supposed site of the massacre of a native tribe” at Myall Creek. The instructions received by Bourke and printed here reiterated the principal that ‘the rights of the aborigines as British subjects’ are established, and that it is not possible to ‘regard them as aliens, with whom a war can exist…’. Included is a letter and from Governor John Franklin and a long report from George Augustus Robinson regarding the education and mortality among the Aborigines then domiciled on Flinders Island; Major Nunn’s report regarding a reprisal raid he made on the Gwydir; a lengthy despatch from Gipps regarding conditions in Port Phillip and printing a memorial signed by 82 landholders regarding attacks; and most infamously, extensive reporting of the Myall Creek Massacre in New England, with several enclosures printing the statements of any number of people who had been involved; as well as besides any number of briefer reports of unrest and violence in New South Wales. $1500 THE 1877 ROYAL COMMISSION 3. [ABORIGINES] VICTORIAN PARLIAMENT. Royal Commission on the Aborigines. Foolscap folio, 129 pp.; fine in half red morocco, gilt title on spine. Melbourne, John Ferres, Government Printer, 1877. Probably the most important mid-Victorian official report on the Aborigines of Australia. The report, published in 1877, took evidence from 24 witnesses, notably including four Aborigines. The Commissioners were William Stawell, Frederick Godfrey, Ewen Cameron, George William Rusden, Alfred William Howitt, and John Gavan Duffy. Included is comment on the main stations (including Coranderrk), as well as the transcript of interviews with witnesses including E.M. Curr, Reverend Hagenauer, and four workers from Coranderrk including the Schoolmistress Miss Robertson. The four Aborigines interviewed were: J. Edgar, A. Campbell, M. Simpson, and T. Farmer. An appendix prints answers to a circular that was distributed. $900 STEAM BOATS ON THE MURRAY 4. ALLEN, James. Journal of an Experimental Trip by the ‘Lady Augusta’, on the River Murray. Octavo, lithographic frontispiece, half-title; a few spots but a very good copy in tan half calf by Bayntun. Adelaide, C.G.E. Platts, 1853. Very scarce: the first navigation of the Murray River, from the Goolwa in to Swan Hill, by steam boat. A lithographic frontispiece depicts the Lady Augusta at berth in the Swan Hill settlement. Sir Henry Fox Young (then governor of South Australia) was anxious to promote inland trade, and set aside £4,000 as a bonus for the first navigation of the Murray from its mouth to the junction with the Darling in an iron-clad steamer. The earlier attempt of the Mary Ann had ended in ignominious failure, but Captain Francis Cadell was determined to win it on the Lady Augusta, with her companion cargo barge the Eureka. This account of the voyage was written by the journalist James Allen, invited along by Cadell to ensure the maximum publicity for his attempt. Allen’s lively account includes daily entries, providing a rich panoply of country scenes, investigations of remote sheep stations, explorations of tributaries tested for their potential in moving produce (mainly wool) and the odd search for drovers lost in the Bush. A wonderful snapshot of a landmark river journey, enlivened by the possibilities of future commercial activity and prosperity. $2250 Ferguson, 5897. ONE OF THE FINEST NZ PLATEBOOKS: AN ANGAS FAMILY COPY 5. ANGAS, George French. The New Zealanders Illustrated. Folio, lithographic title-page and 60 hand-coloured lithograph plates, interleaved with tissue guards and letterpress descriptions; a few small spots and occasional mild toning, three plates slightly chipped at the blank margin, a most attractive copy with bright hand-colouring, bound in nineteenth-century half black morocco with moiré cloth boards, spine with raised bands. London, Thomas McLean, 1847. A superb book with magnificent depictions of New Zealand and its people in the 1840s: the ‘most impressive of any for the exploration period and is deservedly the mahi pai rawa atu of the country’s descriptive works…’ (New Zealand National Bibliography). Maori chiefs and notables eagerly sought inclusion in the prestigious collection of portraits.