Hordern House

BARRINGTON, George A Voyage to New South Wales... Philadelphia, Printed by Thomas Dobson, 1796

Duodecimo, with 2-pp. publisher's advertisements; the text embrowned and some scattered staining but a very good unsophisticated copy, with the half-title, in original American mottled sheep, unlettered spine ruled in gilt; front hinge starting, head of spine restored.

Only the second work on Australia to be published in America. This first American edition of Barrington's Voyage, in appealing and characteristic contemporary condition, is very rare; two copies are recorded at the State Library of New South Wales (Mitchell and Dixson), while the National Library has Ferguson's copy and a fourth is to be found at Monash University.

It is ironic that an essentially fraudulent work should prove to be a fundamental source for eighteenth-century American knowledge of the new settlement at Port Jackson. Eighteenth-century American voyage publications are generally acknowledged as rare: this is particularly interesting as one of only two accounts of New South Wales printed in the United States by 1800. The Philadelphia Barrington was preceded only by the exceptionally rare 1789 New York edition of Tench, of which only the National Library copy is known.
Ferguson, 235; not in Sabin.

$A6400

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