AustLit

19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

George Bennett (1804–1893), medical practitioner and naturalist, produced these extensively illustrated observations of the flora and fauna of New South Wales and Austral Islands twenty-six years after his Wanderings in New South Wales (1834). Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia is not a travel writing text in the traditional sense. The contents focus on the different species of plant and animal, and it is a descriptive and scientific book. However, the preface explains that this book is necessary as the crude and imperfect notions of Australia as arid and unpicturesque have not been entirely corrected by travellers and naturalists. Bennett notes that, when returning to Britain, the colonist is surprised to realise the ignorance prevailing in regard to the colonies, and this book is intended to inform and educate those in the mother country of the landscape and wildlife of Australia. Most of the colour plates and woodcuts are by George French Angas.