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Issue Details: First known date: 1814... 1814 A Voyage to Terra Australis : Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country, and Prosecuted in the Years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty's Ship the Investigator
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'First published in two-volumes in 1814, this is the enthralling account of the circumnavigation of Australia, by the man who gave our country its name.

'Edited and introduced by Tim Flannery, Terra Australis is a vital step toward a new understanding of our own history. Flinders tells of meeting and communicating with Aborigines, of the scrub and wilderness. His descriptions of the difficulties that he and his sailors faced still bristle with energy and immediacy two hundred years later. This is Flinders’ story in his own words, neglected until now, but destined to be eagerly read by all ages.' (Publication summary : Text Classics)

Notes

  • From volume 2, pp. 19519-8 of A Voyage to Terra Australis.

Affiliation Notes

  • 19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

    Matthew Flinders (1774-1814), navigator, hydrographer and scientist, published his travel narratives in 1814. The preface noted that the delay of 11 years between his travels in Terra Australis (1801, 1802, 1803) and the publication was a consequence of the shipwreck of The Porpoise, and his six-and-a-half-year imprisonment in Mauritius. This work was more of an exploration narrative, rather than simply a travel narrative, and contains detailed nautical and navigational coordinates. Flinders stated that the work was not a polished document, and that its value lay in the matter that it contains rather than the manner in which it was written. The work was established through an account of earlier explorations, and is a detailed narrative of Flinders' adventures over sea to Australia.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Melbourne, Victoria,:Text Publishing , 2012 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Introduction, Tim Flannery , essay

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      G. and W. Nicol ,
      1814 .
      Link: 21369080Access online (atlas) Sighted: 18/03/2021
      Extent: 2v. and atlasp.

      Holdings

      Held at: State Library of Tasmania State Library of Tasmania
      Local Id: TL.Q 919.409 FL

      Holdings

      Held at: State Library of Tasmania State Library of Tasmania Launceston Reference Library
      Local Id: LSC.PLR 919.409 FLI

      Holdings

      Held at: James Cook University of North Queensland Townsville Library
      Local Id: 919.4 FLI 1814

      Holdings

      Held at: Adelaide University Barr Smith Library
      Local Id: 919.4 F62v

      Holdings

      Held at: Monash University Monash University Library
      Location: Special Collections Reading Room, Matheson
      Local Id: ef 919.4 F622V

      Holdings

      Held at: National Library of Australia
      Local Id: FRM F576

      Holdings

      Held at: State Library of Victoria
      Local Id: RARELTEF 919.4 F64V

      Holdings

      Held at: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW
      Local Id: MRB/Q980.1/37A1-37A2

      Holdings

      Held at: State Library of Western Australia
      Local Id: Q 994 FLI

      Holdings

      Held at: Australian National Maritime Museum Vaughan Evans Library
      Local Id: 00001898

      Holdings

      Held at: University of New South Wales UNSW Library
      Local Id: VCQ 919.4/17

      Holdings

      Held at: Catholic Institute of Sydney Veech Library
      Location: CIS Stack - Benedictine Collection
      Local Id: CBN 4084-4085

      Holdings

      Held at: Flinders University of South Australia
      Location: Special Collections Rare Books
      Local Id: f 919.4 F622v

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Sydney The University of Sydney Library
      Local Id: General Ferguson 576

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Newcastle Auchmuty Library
      Location: Cultural Coll/RB STACK/FOYE
      Local Id: Q994.02/9 B

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Melbourne The University Library
      Location: UniM Bail SpC/AX f
      Local Id: 910.4 F622

      Holdings

      Held at: State Library of South Australia State Library of SA
      Local Id: 919.4042 F622 d+++

      Holdings

      Held at: Newcastle Region Libraries Newcastle Library
      Local Id: RSQ994.02/FLI/1.1

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Tasmania Morris Miller Library
      Local Id: DU 99 .F62 1814

      Holdings

      Held at: Powerhouse Museum Research Library
      Local Id: 994.02 FLI

      Holdings

      Held at: Library & Archives NT (Northern Territory)
      Local Id: NTC SP COLL FOL 910.9 FLIN
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2012 .
      image of person or book cover 4379441867085797292.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: xxxiv, 268p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: 26 April 2012.
      • Includes bibliographical references (p. xxxiv)
      ISBN: 9781921922404 (pbk.)
      Series: y separately published work icon Text Classics Text Publishing (publisher), Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2012- Z1851461 2012 series - publisher novel 'Great books by great Australian storytellers.' (Text website.)

Works about this Work

The Library at Soho Square : Matthew Flinders, Sir Joseph Banks and the Publication of A Voyage to Terra Australis (1814) Gillian Dooley , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Script & Print , July vol. 41 no. 3 2017; (p. 169-186)

'Matthew Flinders’s major work, A Voyage to Terra Australis: Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country, and Prosecuted in the Years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty’s Ship the Investigator, appeared in 1814, eleven years after the voyage it describes finished, and just days before he died. Although it has now become a canonical work in Australian history and a copy of the first edition is a highly-prized and expensive investment, at the time it was published it did not sell well. 1 The moment had passed—during the intervening decade Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor and made a battleground of the whole of Europe, and the distant activities of a surveying expedition must have seemed irrelevant to many who had been confronted with these more urgent and proximate events. As Ingleton points out, in respect of Flinders’s prospects of promotion or financial support while writing the Voyage, “the war had been long and relentless, and promotion came when vacancies occurred.… Possibly the lords commissioners of the Admiralty were beginning to consider that Flinders had been rewarded sufficiently for the explorations and surveys he had made so long ago.' (Introduction)

Introduction Tim Flannery , 2012 essay
— Appears in: A Voyage to Terra Australis : Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country, and Prosecuted in the Years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty's Ship the Investigator 2012;
Exploration or Espionage? Flinders and the French Bruce Bennett , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia , vol. 2 no. 1 2011; (p. 14-23)
'The heroic status of Matthew Flinders as the maritime explorer who circumnavigated the Great South Land and gave it the name Australia has deflected attention from allegations against him of spying. During Flinders’s return voyage to England in 1803, he was forced to land at Isle de France (Mauritius) where he was detained for over six years as a spy. This article shows that the high-flown rhetoric of French and British authorities about the objectivity and neutrality of scientific voyages sometimes camouflaged more pressing demands for military intelligence and espionage.' Source: Brice Bennett.
Exploration or Espionage? Flinders and the French Bruce Bennett , 2011 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia , vol. 2 no. 1 2011; (p. 14-23)
'The heroic status of Matthew Flinders as the maritime explorer who circumnavigated the Great South Land and gave it the name Australia has deflected attention from allegations against him of spying. During Flinders’s return voyage to England in 1803, he was forced to land at Isle de France (Mauritius) where he was detained for over six years as a spy. This article shows that the high-flown rhetoric of French and British authorities about the objectivity and neutrality of scientific voyages sometimes camouflaged more pressing demands for military intelligence and espionage.' Source: Brice Bennett.
Introduction Tim Flannery , 2012 essay
— Appears in: A Voyage to Terra Australis : Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country, and Prosecuted in the Years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty's Ship the Investigator 2012;
The Library at Soho Square : Matthew Flinders, Sir Joseph Banks and the Publication of A Voyage to Terra Australis (1814) Gillian Dooley , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Script & Print , July vol. 41 no. 3 2017; (p. 169-186)

'Matthew Flinders’s major work, A Voyage to Terra Australis: Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country, and Prosecuted in the Years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty’s Ship the Investigator, appeared in 1814, eleven years after the voyage it describes finished, and just days before he died. Although it has now become a canonical work in Australian history and a copy of the first edition is a highly-prized and expensive investment, at the time it was published it did not sell well. 1 The moment had passed—during the intervening decade Napoleon had crowned himself Emperor and made a battleground of the whole of Europe, and the distant activities of a surveying expedition must have seemed irrelevant to many who had been confronted with these more urgent and proximate events. As Ingleton points out, in respect of Flinders’s prospects of promotion or financial support while writing the Voyage, “the war had been long and relentless, and promotion came when vacancies occurred.… Possibly the lords commissioners of the Admiralty were beginning to consider that Flinders had been rewarded sufficiently for the explorations and surveys he had made so long ago.' (Introduction)

Last amended 5 May 2021 15:31:09
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