[AGUIAR, Vasco José de].
Viagem ao interior da Nova Hollanda , obra moral, critica e recreativa….
Lisbon, Vicente Jorge de Castro, 1841.
Three volumes bound in one, small octavo; some wear to the edges of the boards and a library reference at head of spine, a few spots but an attractive copy in contemporary quarter calf.
A rare imaginary voyage to Australia, not recorded by most of the commentators on the genre.
The anonymous hero of the narrative arrives in New South Wales in 1836, after travelling from Liverpool as manservant to a lord. He spends several years in the colony, and travels extensively in the interior. Fulsome descriptions of the social life of Sydney and the beauties of Australia are used to paint a picture of an utopian new world full of hope and enterprise, in stark contrast with the evils of life in Europe. Ferguson comments on the narrator's hope that 'this new nation will be forever free from the vices of the old world'.
This is the only edition of this rare piece, which was written by a Portuguese civil servant.
Ferguson, 3133; Innocêncio, VII, 405.
