Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #87431
Cost: $5,000.00

Narrative of the Overland Expedition of the Messrs. Jardine

Frederick J. Byerley

FIRST EDITION OF BYERLEY’S NARRATIVE OF THE OVERLAND EXPEDITION OF THE MESSRS. JARDINE, FROM ROCKHAMPTON TO CAPE YORK, NORTHERN QUEENSLAND, 1867, WITH LARGE FOLDING MAP OF THE JARDINE EXPEDITION

(AUSTRALIA) BYERLEY, Frederick J., editor. Narrative of the Overland Expedition of the Messrs. Jardine, from Rockhampton to Cape York, Northern Queensland. Brisbane: J.W. Buxton, 1867. Octavo, original brown cloth. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $5000.

First edition of one of the most important early Australian exploration narratives—the Jardine expedition’s exploration of Queensland, with albumen photographic frontispiece portrait, plate of Somerset, Cape York, and large folding map of Northern Queensland depicting the route of the Jardine expedition, in original cloth.

Compiled from the journals of the Jardine brothers by editor Frederick Byerley, this work details the groundbreaking exploration of North Queensland by the Jardine expedition in the 1860s. The Jardine expedition of 1864/65 was a seemingly pedestrian venture in which the Jardine brothers were contracted by the Queensland government to take cattle to a newly founded outpost called Somerset at the tip of Cape York. Full of bluster and confidence (and perhaps not entirely clear on the conditions they were about to face), the brothers set out with 250 cattle, 42 horses, and 10 men. Before long, their horses began getting sick and dying. They were attacked repeatedly by aborigines—who were evidently not blind to a sprawling caravan of supplies and livestock moving across their land. They also lost some of their supplies to an accidental grassfire. Ultimately, however, the discoveries the Jardine expedition made with regard to geography and topography were valuable and the expedition itself was considered a success. This book remains one of the classics of Australian exploration. Ferguson V:7747. Pencil owner signature.

Text with mild embrowning, expert paper repair to folding map and title page, expert restoration to original cloth.

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