London Sold by G Nicol, Pall Mall; and J Sewell, Cornhill 1793.4to, early half mottled calf, gilt spine, a very attractive copy.
First Edition of this rare work.
Captain Watkin Tench arrived in Australia with the first convict fleet under Arthur Phillip in 1788, undertaking an exploration in the hinterland of Port Jackson resulting in the discovery of the Nepean River. He was the only First Fleet chronicler to publish more than one book. This, his second work is a much more descriptive account of the colony. He returned to England with other marines in the Gorgon in 1792 and his very scarce account of the colony was published over a year later, at the end of 1793. Tench “completes his account of the first years of the colony and brings his record of events down to the end of the first four years of settlement. The map and text give important and full details of the early expeditions of discovery to the south and to the west, including those which Tench led himself. As an accurate, well-written and acutely observed account of the earliest years of Australia’s colonisation.” (Wantrup).
Davidson, p. 76; Ferguson, 171; Wantrup, 16.
