Nineteenth-Century Travel Writing

The Reverend Dr. William Scoresby (1789-1857), F.R.S., was a corresponding member of the Institute of France, Arctic scientist, and clergyman. Scoresby died before his Journal of a Voyage to Australia and Round the World, for Magnetical Research was published. The work was edited and brought to publication by Archibald Smith, Esquire, M.A., F.R.S., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. The majority of the work (including the Editor's Introduction) was concerned with the scientific arguments that formed the motivation for the voyage: magnetism. The majority of the "Narrative of the Voyage" section was devoted to chronicling scientific experiments; however, Scoresby gives a detailed description of Melbourne: its magnificent streets, wages, weather, landscape, as well as the higher levels of colonial society and government that he encountered, before he embarked on his return voyage.