Hordern House

ANGAS, George French The Wreck of the "Admella," and Other Poems. London,  1874

Octavo, 91 pp.; original green cloth, rebacked; couple of stains on upper board, some shelfwear.

Presentation copy inscribed by George French Angas to his daughter Georgiana: she and her three sisters were the dedicatees of this anthology of poems, published in London after Angas had returned there with his family in 1863. During this phase of his life, Angas busied himself with a variety of projects, including providing illustrations for the published journals of Australian explorers John McDouall Stuart and John Forrest, as well as writing books on Australia and Polynesia, and writing numerous scientific papers on conchology.

This collection of verse spans Angas's life and includes poems written in commemoration of two famous Australian shipwrecks, the Admella, which was wrecked in 1859, and the Dunbar, which was wrecked off Sydney Heads in 1857. There is also a poem describing the return to his homeland of his young Maori friend Pomara, who had accompanied Angas to London.

The anthology was dedicated to his four daughters and this copy was inscribed by Angas to his third daughter, "Georgie Angas with Papa's love, Jany. 1 1874". Tragically, Georgie predeceased her father by just four months in 1886, dying five days after giving birth to her second child. In a letter now in the Mitchell Library, Angas wrote of his loss to his friend John Brazier, the Sydney conchologist, 'I have just lost my darling daughter [Georgiana], a most excellent, beautiful, and talented girl, beloved by all who knew her... This sad, sad bereavement has left me quite broken hearted, and in my invalid state of health left me quite unfit and unable to attend to anything'.

$A1250

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