La Nouvelle-Nursie: Histoire d'une Colonie Bénédictine dans l'Australie Occidentale (1846-1878).
Paris; Lyon: Lecoffre Fils et cie. [1879]. First edition. Hardcover. A French history of New Norcia, one of the first Catholic missions to work to convert aborigines, founded in Western Australia by Spanish Benedictines, Fathers Joseph Serra and Rosendo Salvado, in 1836. With a large folding map of Australia at the rear, numerous full page engraved plates (scenes of life at the mission, including a baptism of Aboriginal children; and natural history plates: kangaroo, platypus, lyre bird), and a French/Aboriginal vocabulary.
Large 8vo, frontispiece portrait of Mons. Salvado, viii, 385pp, illustrated with 36 wood engraved plates including a fine double page engraving of the settlement itself, large folding map, Vocabulaire australien (a 17pp Aboriginal glossary). Contemporary quarter blue morocco over marbled papered boards (rebacked with matching leather), gilt lettering and ornament. The stamp of the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Rose Bay on front free endpaper. Some early fox spotting, otherwise vg condition. Ferguson 6943. Good + condition. Item #24276
Price: $300.00