Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia. Performed between the years 1818 and 1822... With an Appendix, containing various subjects relating to Hydrography and Natural History.. by KING, Phillip Parker - 1827

London: John Murray, 1827. Some light foxing on the plates as usual; a very good copy in an excellent period binding.. Two volumes, octavo, with nine aquatint views, large folding map, smaller engraved chart and three engraved natural history plates (one folding); with errata slip in each volume (not noted by Ferguson or Wantrup); bound (without half-titles or final leaf blank except colophon) in nineteenth-century half dark brown morocco.

First edition of this great book: a handsome copy. Admiral Phillip Parker King, Australian-born son of the third governor Philip Gidley King, became the Navy's leading hydrographer. His coastal voyages and Oxley's expeditions inland were the great expansionary undertakings of the Macquarie era.

The book describes the important Australian coastal voyages of the Mermaid and the Bathurst. From 1815 or so, British interest in the largely uncharted northern and north-western coast of Australia had increased, partly out of concern at the territorial ambitions of other nations, especially the Dutch and the French. King was sent from England in 1817, with Admiralty instructions to complete the survey of Australia and finish the charting begun by Flinders and Freycinet. By 1824-25 he had issued a series of eight large charts showing the northern coasts, to be followed with this complete printed journal of his expedition. The naturalist Allan Cunningham sailed with the expedition, and the narrative includes extensive comments on botanical and geological phenomena, together with nautical and hydrographic observations. The engraved views were taken from King's own sketches.

The work also includes significant natural history essays, including work by John Edward Gray, William Sharp Macleay and William Henry Fitton, three senior British scientists. An important section publishes the long essay by Allan Cunningham, 'A Few General Remarks on the Vegetation of certain coasts of Terra Australis...'. Cunningham had sailed with King, and so this section has the added interest of eyewitness reportage, as well as comparisons between the botany of east and west coasts. Cunningham's report is supplemented by notes from Robert Brown; and the whole section concludes with three natural history plates.

This is an example of the regular 1827 issue: a few copies survive with an 1826 date on the title-pages, without any other points of difference (the 1826 issue appears to have been a presentation issue of some kind, as is attested by the fact that where seen they are often accompanied by some sort of manuscript dedication).

. Provenance: Angus & Robertson ticket (89 Castlereagh Street Sydney, their address from 1895); Sotheby, 27 February 1961; J.G. Vallance (Geologist, with a page of his notes regarding geological information contained in the book).