Item #105551 The Wild White Man and the Blacks of Victoria. James BONWICK.
The Wild White Man and the Blacks of Victoria
The Wild White Man and the Blacks of Victoria

The Wild White Man and the Blacks of Victoria

Melbourne, Fergusson & Moore, 1863 (second edition, second issue, with the additional leaf dated November 1866)/ 1856 (under the title 'William Buckley, the Wild White Man').

Octavo (215 x 140 mm), [iv], 90, iii ('Reviews of Mr Bonwick's Colonial Works') pages (including the tipped-in 'Additional Particulars' leaf [89]-90) plus 2 full-page wood-engraved plates by Samuel Calvert and a full-page pictorial two-colour advertisement for Fergusson & Moore on the outside rear cover.

Flush-cut pictorial papered boards (yellow paper, with the illustration - presumably also by Calvert - printed in black, and the text and decorative border in red); paper cover lightly marked and chipped; minor loss to the head of the plain spine (which had been reinforced at an early stage with clear tissue paper, now a little chippd and discoloured); front inner hinge inexpertly strengthened with glue; very small blank piece missing from a bottom corner of the frontispiece; scattered spotting throughout (from impurities in the paper rather than foxing); overall a very presentable copy in original condition.

On the inside front cover is the bookplate of Alfred Stephen Kenyon (1867-1943), engineer, ethnologist and historian, 'remembered not only as a unique personality, but for his work in opening up the northern and western Mallee and extending the districts irrigated from the Murray, and for his pioneer studies in the ethnology of Victorian Aboriginals and pastoral history' (Australian Dictionary of Biography). On the title page is the pencil surname signature of Edward Edgar Pescott (1872-1954), horticulturalist, naturalist, author, and bibliographer of James Bonwick. The number '180' in ink on the front cover is presumably a personal reference number put there by either Kenyon or Pescott. The story of William Buckley (1780-1856), who was transported for life in 1802; the following year he absconded from a camp at Port Phillip. He was 'befriended by Aboriginals of the Watourong tribe, who believed the big white stranger to be a reincarnation of their dead tribal chief. He learnt their language and their customs, and was given a wife, by whom, he said, he had a daughter'. He lived with them for thirty-two years, finally giving himself up in July 1835 (Australian Dictionary of Biography). The 'Additional Particulars' leaf, dated 1 November 1866, contains information 'collected since the publication of this work'. Ferguson 7226 (stating that this additional leaf is a loose insert 'rarely seen'); Greenway 1453; Pescott 53 (with the 'Additional Particulars' leaf: Pescott also seems to suggest that the three pages of reviews first appeared in this edition, but this is unlikely, as the only review quoted for the Buckley book is from 1857, clearly for the first edition. Ferguson refers only to Pescott 52, the 1863 edition as originally issued).

Item #105551

Sold

See all items by