Flinders sailed from England on July 18, 1801 and during the next two years he surveyed the entire south coast of Australia from Cape Leeuwin to Bass Strait, the east coast and the Gulf of Carpentaria. On the return journey, he was detained by the French in Mauritius for six-and-a-half years and was not released until June 1810. He devoted the remainder of his life to the publication of his work.
An introduction page of the first edition with pencil annotations.
A correction to page 36 changes the text from “At this time we had not a single person in the sick list” to “At the end of three months we had not a single person in the sick list”.
An annotation to page 160 provides a set of geographical co-ordinates, while another makes sweeping changes to a table of “native” vocabulary and others appear to provide thematic shoulder notes and instructions for moving whole passages elsewhere in the text. One annotation also appears to impose moral censure on a comment relating to relations between the sexes among Indigenous people.
Venning said in the absence of a second edition, it was impossible to know whether these amendments were regarded as the will of the author. The book, which is only the first volume, is expected to reach between £60,000 ($116,118) and £80,000.
“The pre-publication copy of Terra Australis is a complete one-off: no comparable volume is known,” he said.
Also up for sale and expected to reach up to £60,000, is Flinders’ own copy of Jacques Labillardiere’s Voyage in Search of La Perouse, which was almost certainly taken with him aboard the Investigator.
Pencil annotations, in Flinders’ own handwriting across nine pages, totalling 164 words and four corrections to co-ordinates, are principally concerned with Labilladiere’s descriptions of the geography of Australia. He is rather bluntly critical, claiming that “Labillardiere’s assertions are to be distrusted when they relate to geography”.
A writing slope belonging which accompanied Matthew Flinders on the Investigator used for entering log entries and writing correspondence, will also be auctioned.Credit: CHRISTIE'S IMAGES LTD. 2024
The family is also selling Flinders’ copy of George Vancouver’s A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, in which he amends the author’s geographical co-ordinates, correcting the name of an island in modern-day French Polynesia and giving the name of the wife of the first Tahitian King.
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