Parker, Mary Ann

Estimate

2,500 - 4,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

A Voyage Round the World, in the Gorgon Man of War: Captain John Parker. Performed and written by his Widow: for the advantage of a numerous family. London: John Nichols, 1795
Paper

FIRST EDITION, 8vo (216 x 137mm.), xxxii, 150pp., [ii pp. adverts], nineteenth-century calf, full gilt spine, double black labels, covers bordered in gilt, marbled endpapers

Literature

Ferguson 229; Hill (2004) 1303; Mendelssohn (1979) III, p.629

Catalogue Note

The first private traveller's account of the new colony, and the first by a woman. Captain Parker sailed with the Gorgon as part of the Third Fleet, carrying Philip King, the new Lieutenant Governor of Norfolk Island and his family. While at Port Jackson, Captain Parker attended conferences to discuss the establishment of a whaling fishery on the coast of New Holland. His minutes of these discussions were published by his widow in the present work, alongside the author's informal observations on the personalities in the settlement. The Gorgon left Australia in December 1791 taking with her Watkin Tench and other marines who had sailed with the First Fleet in 1788.