Find Lots

• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  The Denis Joachim Collection
• Sale Date:
  19 Jun 2016 ~ 2pm - Session 1: Lots 1 - 321
  20 Jun 2016 ~ 10am - Session 2: Lots 322 - 480
  20 Jun 2016 ~ 2pm - Session 3: Lot 481 - 688
  20 Jun 2016 ~ 6pm - Session 4: Lots 689 - 818
• Lot #:
  42
• Lot Description:
  Fielding, John (publisher). An Historical Narrative of the Discovery of New Holland and New South Wales
  Containing an Account of the Inhabitants, Soil, Animals, and other Productions of those Countries, and including a Particular Description of Botany Bay... Quarto, pp. [ii], 34 + folding “General chart of New Holland [with] Chart of Botany Bay” coloured in outline, neat contemporary owner’s name at head of title, a fine, large copy, with the edges uncut, bound in more recent half calf and marbled boards. London, John Fielding, [1786].
• Notes:
  The first separate account of New South Wales: the rare first edition. Inspired by the current speculation concerning government plans to establish a settlement on the east coast of New Holland and based on the first-hand accounts of the east coast by Cook, Magra, Parkinson and others, Fielding’s Historical Narrative is the first book devoted to New South Wales, describing the new land that was to become the first European settlement anywhere in the newly discovered South Seas. Fielding’s Historical Narrative appears superficially to have been an extraordinarily popular book. With two quarto editions and one octavo edition within a few months, the great rarity of any edition has always been surprising. But this popularity is illusory. The ‘two’ quarto editions are in fact merely two issues, the second with a corrected map and misleading described as a “second edition”, while the unsold stocks of the octavo edition were sufficiently substantial three years later for the publisher, John Stockdale, to have them issued as part of the Forster-Stockdale 1789 account of the first settlement. That so few copies of the Fielding Narrative – in any edition or issue – have survived is probably a fair representation of the comparative public indifference that would so swiftly change in 1787 when Stockdale’s History of New Holland enjoyed an undeniable popularity. The present lot is the first issue with an erratum printed on the verso of the title, correcting a mistake in the map (the words “Longitude East from the meridian of Greenwich” omitted from the map by the engraver). Davidson, pp. 77-8; Ferguson, 11; Forbes, 115; Holmes, 60.
• Estimate:
  A$12,000 - 24,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

  Can't see the realised price? Upgrade your subscription now!

• Category:
  Books & Manuscripts

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.