The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay; with an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson & Norfolk Island, compiled from Authentic Papers…to which are added, The Journals of Lieut. Shortland, Watts, Ball, & Capt. Marshall, with an Account of their New Discoveries. Second Edition. London: Printed for John Stockdale, Piccadilly, 1790.
Quarto. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Phillip and engraved vignette title (T. Medland sculpt.); dedication leaf, dated 24 November 1789; Advertisement (pp. i-iii); Anecdotes of Governor Phillip (separately paginated, pp. 1-6) with accompanying errata note; List of Subscribers; List of Plates; Contents; main text, A Voyage to New South Wales, Chapters I-XXII (pp. 1-298); Appendix, Tables I-IX and List of Convicts (pp. i-lxxiv); publisher’s advertisement leaf at the rear. Complete with all fifty-five plates called for, including the seven folding charts.
The foundation printed account of the First Fleet and the settlement of New South Wales, compiled by Stockdale from Governor Phillip’s official despatches and journals, with the journals of Shortland, Watts, Ball and Marshall appended. Plates cover natural history subjects (kangaroo, opossums, parrots, fish), views (Botany Bay, Port Jackson, Sydney Cove), an early plan of the Sydney Cove settlement, among the earliest published views of the site, and charts of Port Jackson, Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island, and the tracks of the Alexander and Scarborough.
This copy shows a mixed bibliographic state: the text is in the earliest recorded state, with the kangaroo plate at page 106 captioned “Kangooroo” (later corrected to “Kanguroo”) and page 122 misnumbered “221” (uncorrected). The title vignette is in the second state, with the engraver’s credit to T. Medland only and the designer’s name (Henry Webber) removed at Josiah Wedgwood’s request. Text and vignette states were corrected independently during Stockdale’s print run, so this combination is not unusual.
The Appendix’s List of Convicts records names, place of conviction, and sentence length for those transported – a starting point for First Fleet descent research.
References:
Crittenden, V. A Bibliography Of The First Fleet. ACT 1982 : 180.
Ferguson, J. A. Bibliography of Australia Volumes 1-8, Canberra 1976: 90
Hill, J. The Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages. San Diego 1974 : 1347
Wantrup, J. Australian Rare Books. Sydney, 1987:pp. 59-64
Collections:
National Library Australia: Bib ID 2994437
British Library London: C.47.i.10.
State Library New South Wales: 1789 MRB/Q991/P
State Library Victoria: CCF 994.02 P54V
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