Angas, George French. SOUTH AUSTRALIA ILLUSTRATED.
Impl. folio, First Edition; pp. [2](colour-illustrated lithographed title, dated 1846, verso blank), [2](typeset title-page dated 1847, verso blank), [2](calligraphic litho-engraved Dedication to Queen Adelaide, verso blank), [iii]-iv(List of Subscribers), [4](Preface & General Remarks on the Aboriginal Inhabitants of South Australia); 60 superb hand-coloured litho plates, each with facing leaf of descriptive text (Plate 27 with 2 leaves); finely bound in half green morocco with marbled sides, with matching fitted slipcase by Aquarius; (small, unobtrusive stamp of the Zoological Society almost invisibly erased from two early leaves and present on a third; a few leaves with the faintest browning of extreme margins only); an exceptionally fine, unusually clean copy, the colours brilliant & full, with no sign of fading; rare. London; Thomas M'Lean; 1846-47. Two of the plates are by S. T. Gill - the view of Adelaide and that showing the Departure of Captain Sturt, August 1844, on the Central Australian Expedition - these are particularly fine early views of the city - and have been sold separately for astronomical figures.
***A most attractive copy, both externally and internally, and one of the two outstanding substantial collections of early coloured views of Australia (the other being Joseph Lycett's Views in Australia, 1824-5), the work contains 41 fine topographical views (on 37 plates), of various parts of South Australia, 19 plates of the Aboriginal inhabitants, their dwellings and artefacts, 3 plates of insects and one of South Australian botany. A new species of Kangaroo is shown on one of the plates. The work is of great importance as a contemporary record of South Australia for, as the Author states in his Preface, "With the hope of preserving time and life-like records of men and scenes, so quickly passing away, I have endeavoured by pictorial representation, to describe the most interesting and peculiar features of South Australia and its Aboriginal inhabitants. I have devoted my time and powers entirely to the accomplishment of this task, visiting all portions of the Colony, and making myself conversant with the manners and habits of native tribes whose existence is unknown to the world". The information portrayed on the Aborigines is particularly valuable.
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