Journey across the Western Interior of Australia

Description:

With an Introduction and Additions, by Charles H. Eden, Edited by H.W. Bates.

1st edition. Scarce.

Colonel Peter Egerton Warburton CMG (1813-1889) was a British military officer, Commissioner of Police for South Australia, and an Australian explorer. In 1872 he led an epic expedition from Adelaide, crossing the arid centre of Australia, to the coast of Western Australia via Alice Springs. The expedition suffered great privations, due to extreme summer heat, meaning they could only travel at night, and loss of provisions. Many of their camels died within a few months. During the final stages Warburton was so weak he had to be carried prone on one of the surviving camels. He also lost the sight in one eye. Warburton was so weakend by the hardships suffered on the journey that he had neither 'health nor desire' to complete a narrative of the expedition, and his journals were edited for publication by the renowned explorer Henry Walter Bates, then of the Royal Geographical Society.

Condition

8vo, orig. green cloth, gilt and black decorative design to front board and spine, blind stamped to rear board, bevelled boards. Some light rubbing to extremities, short nick to head of spine, hinges cracked but firm. Occasional light foxing. Folding map with a few tears, repaired without loss, some strengthening to folds with paper strips to rear, one short tear at inner edge repaired with small piece of vinyl tape, with adhesive showing through. Owner's bookplate to endpaper, contemporary owner's signature, dated 1875 to half-title. Good.