Journal of a Voyage to new South Wales with Sixty-five Plates of Non descript Animals, Birds, Lizards, Serpents, curious Cones of Trees and other Natural Productions

London: Printed for J. Debrett, Piccadilly, 1790. 4to. (11 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches). First edition, deluxe issue. A2 a6 B-Pp4 Qq2 a-e4. 128 ff. [18] [1]-299 [39]. 356 pp. 65 finely hand-colored engraved plates. Engraved title-page vignette of the view in Port Jackson. Title, Dedication, Advertisement, List of Subscribers, List of Plates, White's Journal, Appendix, Diary of the Winds, Books Printed for J. Debrett, New Publications. Contemporary full calf with neat repairs to joints, spine ruled gilt into six compartments with gilt ornamental devices, second compartment with gilt-lettered red morocco titling-piece, with gilt-patterned board edges and armorial bookplate on front pastedown

The rare hand-colored deluxe issue of White's beautifully illustrated First Fleet Journal with engravings after Sarah Stone: among the earliest and most desirable works of Australian exploration and natural history.

The most important early work of Australian natural history. It is one of the first and most beautiful of Australian color-plate books. White served as surgeon general to the settlement of New South Wales and sailed with the First Fleet. His account is the best of the early descriptions of the natural history of the colony. "White's journal is of key importance to any collection of Australiana and is essential to a collection of Foundation books." [Wantrup] Hill adds that "the long appendix is very important as it describes the natural history of the new colony; the first major work of this sort." The volume includes a lengthy list of subscribers containing some seven hundred names, mostly for the uncoloured issue, which speaks to the contemporary interest in the South Pacific in the wake of Cook's voyages. The present copy is the elusive deluxe hand-colored issue. The magnificent plates are largely after drawings by Sarah Stone and Frederick Nodder, based on the natural history specimens sent by White back to London. A prolific and highly accomplished painter of natural history subjects in London between 1777 and 1806, Stone worked for Sir Ashton Lever, documenting Lever's vast private collection of ornithological, zoological, and ethnographical specimens. Access to specimens collected by Cook's early voyages inspired Stone to create the most significant portfolio of paintings and published engravings of Australian birds, amply demonstrated by this volume. When the artist Thomas Watling, a convict, arrived in the colony in October 1792, he was assigned to White and over the next two years made numerous drawings of birds for him. It's possible White also was responsible for some of the original sketches for the engravings herein. White's journal also contains a description of the voyage from London, with long, detailed accounts of his sojourns at Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, and Norfolk Island.

Abbey Travel, 605. Ayer/Zimmer, 672. Casey Wood 626. Crittenden, A Bibliography of the First Fleet 248. Davidson, pp.81-86. Ferguson, 97. Ford 2495. Hill 1858. Nissen ZBI 4390. Wantrup 17. Zimmer 672.