Lot 657
  • 657

Hunter, John

Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
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Description

  • An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, with the Discoveries that have been made in New South Wales and in the Southern Ocean. London: John Stockdale, 1793
  • paper
FIRST EDITION, 4to (286 x 225mm.), [2], [16], 584pp., engraved frontispiece and title, 5 engraved maps, 2 folding, 10 engraved plates, contemporary tree calf, flat spine gilt, red label, marbled endpapers, yellow edges



A fine association copy with the bookplates of John Douglas and Samuel Enderby junior (see provenance).



Hunter served as second in command to Governor Phillip on the Sirius, in the first convict fleet, and later succeeded Phillip as Governor of New South Wales. Included here is one of the earliest views of Sydney, after a sketch by Hunter dated 1788, showing the very modest settlement that had been founded in the previous year. The plate of a New South Wales family was engraved by William Blake after a sketch by Governor King.

Provenance

John Douglas (1721-1807), Bishop of Salisbury, bookplates on both upper and lower paste-down endpapers. Douglas was the editor of Captain Cook's journals of his second and third voyages (Voyage towards the South Pole, 1777; Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, 1784) and wrote an influential introduction to the latter, drawing attention to the resources of the Pacific north-west.

Samuel Enderby junior (1756-1829, whale and seal oil merchant and promoter of Antarctic exploration), bookplate of a harpooner with dark hair [Enderby Sr.'s bookplate has the harpooner with white hair; see his copy of Dalrymple's An Historical Collection of Several Voyages (lot 354)]. Under Samuel junior's leadership of the company "in 1806 the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands were discovered by their vessel the Ocean, and in 1808 Bouvet Island (Bouvet-øya) was rediscovered by the Swan and Otter and rediscovered again in 1825 by the Sprightly and Lively when it was claimed for the crown" (ODNB). Samuel Enderby (probably the father who died in 1797) was a subscriber to this work.

Loosely inserted is a note of provenance from a descendant of Enderby, recording the sale of this book on 13 October 1983 (auction at Lawrence Fine Art, Crewkerne, lot 277).

Literature

Hill (2004) 857; Ferguson 152; Wantrup 13