Settlers and Convicts; or, Recollections of Sixteen Years' Labour in the Australian Backwoods. By an Emigrant Mechanic
London: C. Cox, 1847. First Edition. Hardcover. Duodecimo : pp. xii, [5]-435 : contemporary full calf : morocco title labels : raised bands : gilt lettering and decorations, all edges speckled : armorial bookplates on front endpapers including a signed Jonathan Dawson Brodie bookplate. Colophon: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street. Binders ticket Kerr & Richardson, Glasgow. [Ferguson, 4529]. Minor wear to extremities, internally in superb condition. Near Fine. Item #7728
The very scarce first edition in one volume of this fictional-factual account of life in colonial New South Wales. The London-born author enlisted in the Guards, deserted and fled to Australia in 1825 where he remained until 1840. He wrote extensively on the colonies. Along with the author's The Emigrant Family, "Harris provides the most realistic and comprehensive accounts of early colonial life in Australia. They have been a valuable reference source for social historians, who have found in them informed and accurate comments on such features of the colonial scene as the convict system, the Aborigines, land reform, modes of transport, bushrangers, urban and outback life-styles. Nor are they negligible as literature." (The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, p.346).
Price: $1,500.00