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CHARTING THE BARRIER REEF AND THE SOUTHERN COAST OF NEW GUINEA
from July 2023
32. MACGILLIVRAY, John.
Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake…
Two volumes, octavo, with engraved folding map and 13 lithographed plates after T. Huxley and others as well as many text illustrations; a fine copy in an early binding of half polished calf, spines gilt in compartments, double labels. London, T. & W. Boone, 1852.
First edition: “a very important voyage of exploration and scientific research” (Ferguson). This was the last, and today is the most difficult to find, of the great exploration journals published by Boone during the heroic age of Australian exploration.
John MacGillivray served as the chief naturalist on the Rattlesnake, part of the important series of hydrographical voyages undertaken by the Admiralty in the late 1840s to chart the Great Barrier Reef and north coast, and the southern coast of New Guinea. The Rattlesnake continued the work that began with Lort Stokes on the Beagle and was continued by Blackwood on the Fly and Bramble. The ship’s complement was distinguished by the presence of the naturalist, T.H. Huxley, and the marine artist, Sir Oswald Brierly. A number of the plates here are after drawings by Huxley.
MacGillivray’s books is also of value for its reprinting of William Carron’s extremely rare narrative of the tragic Kennedy expedition. It was the Rattlesnake that transported Kennedy and his large party to their point of departure on the Queensland coast. The statement made by Jackey Jackey, the remarkable figure who was Kennedy’s Aboriginal servant, is also included.
Ferguson, 11972; Hill, 1060; Wantrup, 145.
Provenance: R. David Parsons (American collector, with book-label); Eric Stock (Melbourne collector, with bookplates).
$14,000 [5000708 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at
MELBOURNE: THE MAN
33. [MELBOURNE] McINNES, Edward (engraver).
Viscount Melbourne.
Mezzotint measuring 305 x 230 mm. (plate size). London, Hodgson & Graves, 1839.
A beautifully executed mezzotint portrait of William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne, after whom the capital city of Victoria was named in 1837. Although printed in 1839, at the height of Melbourne’s career and while he was serving as Prime Minister of Great Britain, the mezzotint is based on a youthful portrait of the great statesman by Sir Thomas Lawrence R.A.
The city of Melbourne grew from humble beginnings, when John Batman explored the Port Phillip Bay area against the express wishes of Sir Richard Bourke, Governor of New South Wales. Within two years Bourke was forced to acknowledge the rapidly growing settlement which he named in honour of Viscount Melbourne in 1837. In doing so Bourke replaced a variety of names for the fledgling settlement including Bearbrass, Bearport, Glenelg and Batmania (so called after John Batman).
Largely due to the gold-rushes of the mid nineteenth-century Melbourne became one of the most prosperous and fastest growing cities of the British Empire.
$850 [4007937 at hordern.com] see description and illustrations at
