David Collins - An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales - 1798 and 1804 - The Earliest Substantial History of Australian Settlement

COLLINS, DAVID. An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales. The Earliest Substantial Historical Account of Australian Settlement. 1798 First Edition and 1804 Expanded Second Edition, Complete with All Maps and Plates, Finely Bound in Uniform Tree Calf.

COLLINS, Lieutenant-Colonel David. An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales: with Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, &c. of the Native Inhabitants of that Country. To which are added, some Particulars of New Zealand; compiled, by permission, from the MSS. of Lieutenant-Governor King. London: Printed by A. Strahan for T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1798.

Together with:

COLLINS, Lieutenant-Colonel David. An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, from its First Settlement in January 1788, to August 1801: with Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners, &c. of the Native Inhabitants of that Country. To which are added, some Particulars of New Zealand; compiled, by permission, from the MSS. of Lieutenant-Governor King; and an Account of a Voyage performed by Captain Flinders and Mr. Bass; by which the Existence of a Strait separating Van Diemen's Land from the Continent of New Holland was ascertained. Abstracted from the Journal of Mr. Bass. London: Printed by A. Strahan for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1804.

The 1798 first edition paired with the revised and expanded second edition of 1804. Ferguson 263 and 390; Wantrup 19 and 21. Complete with all maps and plates called for in the respective editions.

Two quarto volumes. Finely bound as a uniform set in full tree calf, the richly mottled boards enclosed within elaborate gilt foliate borders. The spines are densely gilt in compartments with repeated scallop and star tooling, red morocco title labels and dark green morocco volume labels lettered in gilt; marbled endpapers and speckled edges complete a handsome and imposing presentation.

An exceptional pairing of David Collins's foundational account of New South Wales, the earliest substantial historical account of Australian settlement. Collins sailed with the First Fleet and served as Judge-Advocate and Secretary to Governor Arthur Phillip, positions that placed him at the centre of the colony's civil administration and gave him unusual access to its official life, hardships, developing institutions and earliest relations with Aboriginal communities. His account was the fullest and most detailed history of the new colony to have appeared by the time of its publication in London in 1798.

The particular significance of this set lies in the presence of two distinct and complementary forms of Collins's work. The first book is the original first edition of 1798, preserving Collins's earliest published account of the settlement during its formative First Fleet years. Alongside it is the expanded second edition of 1804, a revised account extending the narrative to August 1801 and incorporating additional exploration and natural history material. Bound together in matching tree calf, the two volumes allow the collector to place the original appearance of Collins's history beside its later, expanded and more richly illustrated recension.

The 1798 first edition is one of the fundamental printed sources for early Australia. It records the establishment of the colony, the practical struggles of settlement and administration, questions of punishment and governance, the natural environment, and Collins's observations of Aboriginal people, their customs and ceremonies. Its engraved illustrations include early views of the colony and significant visual records of Indigenous Australian subjects, associated with drawings by the convict artist Thomas Watling. Present in this volume are the engraved portrait of Collins, maps and views including the Governor's House at Rose Hill, Parramatta, together with all other plates and maps called for by the edition.

The 1804 second edition greatly enriches the pairing. Published after the original first-edition sequence of 1798 and 1802, it presents Collins's account in revised and expanded form, with the important narrative of the voyage undertaken by Matthew Flinders and George Bass, by which the strait separating Van Diemen's Land from mainland Australia was established. It is also particularly desirable for its illustrated natural history content, including the striking hand-coloured plate of the Menura, or lyrebird, shown here, together with the further coloured and engraved material present as issued. All maps and plates required for the 1804 edition are present.

Having both books together is of considerable historical and collecting interest. The 1798 first edition presents Collins's earliest and most immediate printed account of the settlement; the 1804 edition shows how that foundational narrative developed, bringing the story forward, adding the Bass and Flinders exploration material and enriching the visual record with hand-coloured natural history plates absent from the 1798 volume in this form. The set therefore brings together the origins of Collins's work with its expanded and more visually compelling later edition.

Collins's account remains important across several fields: as an early history of British settlement in Australia; as a primary source for the administration and daily struggles of the colony; as a record, shaped by the colonial perspective of its period, of encounters with Aboriginal communities; and as a major publication in the history of Australian exploration, cartography and natural history. Its incorporation of material relating to New Zealand and, in the 1804 edition, the voyage of Bass and Flinders, extends its significance across the wider history of the Pacific and southern exploration.

The volumes are magnificently presented in uniform full tree calf, with densely gilt spines and contrasting morocco labels creating exceptional shelf presence. Internally, there is scattered foxing, browning and light offsetting in places, consistent with an illustrated work of this date. The maps and engraved plates retain good definition, while the hand-coloured natural history plates provide particular visual appeal.

A superbly bound and complete pairing of Collins's earliest substantial historical account of Australian settlement: the first edition of 1798 accompanied by the expanded and illustrated second edition of 1804, together preserving the earliest form of the text and its later development in a set of exceptional historical, cartographical and visual interest.