The voyage : a moral poem [WOOLLS, William, 1814-1893]

Written during, and descriptive of, a voyage from England to New South Wales. Sydney : printed by Stephens and Stokes, 1832. Octavo, later cloth, lettered in gilt on spine; Mackaness collection bookplate to front pastedown; pp. 24; water stain to lower margin, occasional foxing, a very good copy. An early Australian literary work and a great rarity. William Woolls was born in Hampshire in 1814, emigrating to Australia at the age of seventeen. He had hoped of finding work as a tutor, and was soon appointed an assistant-master at The King's School, Parramatta. After four years there he moved to Sydney, where he was classical master at Sydney College as well as working as a private tutor and journalist, before founding a private school at Parramatta which he ran for many years. Woolls published three early literary works in the 1830s, and was also a noted botanist who made a significant contribution to the botanical exploration of the new continent. His study of the botany in the Parramatta region earned him a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Göttingen in 1871. In much later life, at the age of 59, Woolls was ordained an Anglican priest and became the rural dean of Richmond in 1877. He died in 1893. The Voyage, written by Woolls as a late teenager, describes his voyage from England to Port Jackson in 1830. He describes the sense of isolation and despair faced by the emigrant on the long sea-voyage to far-away lands, and its corollary, the joy that flows from the anticipation of the journey reaching its end. This copy, formerly in the collection of Dr George Mackaness, with bookplate, has generally been considered the only one in private hands. Ferguson, 1617; Miller, p. 228; Serle, p. 221.