RICHLY ILLUSTRATED AND FINELY BOUND LARGE FOLIO ATLAS OF AUSTRALASIA
GARRAN, Andrew. The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia. Sydney and Melbourne: The Picturesque Atlas Publishing Company, 1886. Three volumes. Large folio (14 by 18 inches), early full black morocco gilt, raised bands, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.
First edition of this profusely illustrated late 19th-century history of Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, with 23 color-printed maps (seven large folding), 41 full-page wood-engravings, and hundreds of fine in-text wood-engravings of historical scenes and personages, local customs, natural history and landscapes. Three folio volumes handsomely bound.
Published by Andrew Garran, editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and one of the earliest supporters of the federation of Australia, this monumental history of "down under" includes maps of Tasmania, Oceania, New Zealand, the Fiji Islands and New Guinea. Numerous historical essays detail aboriginal life, as well as the European explorations and colonial settlements. The art editor was Frederick B. Schell, prolific illustrator for Harper's Weekly and Leslie's Illustrated Magazine, and for years Frederic Remington's editor. "Schell, was only twenty-seven when he was offered the exciting assignment of selecting the illustrations for the mammoth three-volume publication The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia. He had already acted in a similar capacity as art editor for a companion volume The Picturesque Atlas of Canada [1882], which had proved a most successful publication, running into several editions. It was intended to employ these direct selling techniques to sell the Australasia volumes to the newly-affluent capital cities of Australia and to owners of remote properties in the bush. No expense was spared and some of Australia's finest landscape artists such as Julian Rossi Ashton and Arthur Henry Fullwood were commissioned to travel to different areas and paint the most historically interesting or beautiful views available" (Mill Pharmacy). The result is not only a splendid written history, but a rich visual history as well— a tour de force of the art of engraving on wood. Early gift inscription.
Scattered light foxing, morocco-gilt binding very handsome. A nearly fine copy.