Abbott Brian Douglas (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Armidale, 4HBR, 2012. Quarto, xxiv, 397 pages with numerous illustrations plus 44 pages of plates, 31 maps (including 3 folding) and a genealogical table. Gilt-lettered synthetic cloth; a fine copy with the excellent dustwrapper (with a short sealed tear at the head of the spine). 'Phillip Parker King (1791-1856), naval officer, hydrographer and company manager . was the first and for years the only Australian-born to attain eminence in the world outside the Australian colonies. In 1836 Charles Darwin described him as "my beau ideal of a captain", but later commented that his journal abounded with "Natural History of a very trashy nature". G.C. Ingleton has described King as "the greatest of the early Australian marine surveyors" and has written that his charts "although not numerous, were of a quality not attained by any previous navigator in the Pacific"' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography', revised online entry).