1839 Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South Wales

Description

Colour Plates, Folding Maps, Folding Plates, Illustrated, Leather Binding, Rebound, Scarce

The illustrated two volume second edition of surveyor and explorer Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell's account of his early nineteenth century expedition to the Australian interior. A scarce complete two volume edition, published the year after the first edition.

Collated, illustrated with a hand coloured frontispiece and nineteen further lithographic plates to volume I, and a frontispiece, and twenty eight further plates to volume II, including three folding plates and six hand coloured lithographs. Lacking one large folding plate to volume I, and plate 27, 'Chaeropus Ecaudatus' to volume II.

Illustrated by the author himself.

Volume 1 lacking pages 193-194, leaf O1.

With four pages of advertisements to the rear of volume I. Lacking the eight pages of 'Opinions of the Press' which precede the frontispiece of volume I but were often omitted in binding. 

With the stamp of 'F. A. Dundas, Essayez' to head of page 1 of each volume, and the original front free endpaper, bearing the contemporary inscription dedicating the work to Emmeline Sophia Mackenzie, bound in following the title page of volume I. Inscribed by her brother, Donald Hume Macleod, a British Army officer and early Western Australia settler.

A fascinating and richly illustrated account of Mitchell's expeditions in the 1820s and '30s, with discussions of the aboriginal populations he encountered, and the geology, scenery and animals he observed.