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y separately published work icon A Voyage to Botany Bay with a Description of the Country, Manners, Customs, Religion, &c. of the Natives single work   non-fiction  
First known date: ca. 1795 Issue Details: First known date: 1795... 1795 A Voyage to Botany Bay with a Description of the Country, Manners, Customs, Religion, &c. of the Natives
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Affiliation Notes

  • 19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

    George Barrington (1755?-1804) was a famous pickpocket. None of Barrington’s works (including A Voyage to Botany Bay, An Account of a Voyage to New South Wales (1810) and A Sequel to Barrington's Voyage to New South Wales (1800)) were written by Barrington himself, and all are palpably fictitious. This description of Barrington’s voyage to Botany Bay is prefaced by "The Life of George Barrington", a brief biography purportedly describing his family, his convictions and experience as a convict. The voyage is described through first person narration, as he journeys from England to Australia via South America. It describes the Captain's respect for Barrington, which eventuates in his appointment as superintendent of convicts at Parramatta and the kindly reception of the governor. Once in Australia, Barrington describes the Aboriginal population, customs, and the Australian landscape. Although this work is falsified and plagiarised principally from David Collins' work on New South Wales, it was influential in contemporary conceptions of travel to Australia.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       C. Lowndes ,       ca. 1795 .
      image of person or book cover 3074422975715941060.png
      Link: 20300037Full text document Sighted: 02/10/2020
      Description: illus.

      Holdings

      Held at: Adelaide University Barr Smith Library
      Local Id: 994.4 B27v 1795

      Holdings

      Held at: State Library of Tasmania State Library of Tasmania
      Location: Allport Library
      Local Id: STACK 994.02 BAR

      Holdings

      Held at: Monash University Monash University Library
      Local Id: 919.44 B276V

      Holdings

      Held at: National Library of Australia
      Local Id: 994.4 BAR

      Holdings

      Held at: State Library of Victoria
      Local Id: RARELT 919.44 B27VB

      Holdings

      Held at: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW
      Local Id: DSM/991/14M3

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Melbourne The University Library
      Local Id: 919.44042 BARR

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Tasmania Morris Miller Library
      Local Id: DU 160 .B39 1794
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Brummel ,       1969 .
      Alternative title: A Voyage to Botany Bay, by George Barrington, Together with His Life and Trial and the Sequel to His Voyage
      Extent: viii, 120pp.p.
      Edition info: Facsimile reprint of 1st eds., London, Lowndes [1795?] and 1801.
      Description: illus.
      ISBN: 0901872008
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Works about this Work

'Under a Deceptious Mask' : H. D. Symonds and the Publication of Barrington's Voyage to New South Wales Nathan Garvey , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Bibliographical Society of Australia Bulletin , vol. 28 no. 1-2 2004; (p. 62-72) Attempts to begin an up-to-date bibliographic study devoted to the Barrington works and their publishing history, and to re-examine the origins of the first and most important of the books attributed to Barrington, the Voyage to New South Wales.
Whose Voice Was It Anyway? The Eighteenth-Century Colonial Experience of George Barrington Suzanne Rickard , 2002 single work essay
— Appears in: Selves Crossing Cultures : Autobiography and Globalisation 2002; (p. 41-52)
Criminal Transport : George Barrington and the Colonial Cure Toby R. Benis , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 20 no. 3 2002; (p. 167-177)

Examines the representation of criminality and convicts in the work of George Barrington and argues that his stunningly successful Voyage to Botany Bay (1795) is a significant response to the popular anxiety that convicts are carriers of social contamination and physical disease, at a time when the implicit association was made between criminals and colonial subjects, who needed to be physically segregated from Britain in order to maintain the stability of the domestic order.
Whose Voice Was It Anyway? The Eighteenth-Century Colonial Experience of George Barrington Suzanne Rickard , 2002 single work essay
— Appears in: Selves Crossing Cultures : Autobiography and Globalisation 2002; (p. 41-52)
'Under a Deceptious Mask' : H. D. Symonds and the Publication of Barrington's Voyage to New South Wales Nathan Garvey , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Bibliographical Society of Australia Bulletin , vol. 28 no. 1-2 2004; (p. 62-72) Attempts to begin an up-to-date bibliographic study devoted to the Barrington works and their publishing history, and to re-examine the origins of the first and most important of the books attributed to Barrington, the Voyage to New South Wales.
Criminal Transport : George Barrington and the Colonial Cure Toby R. Benis , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 20 no. 3 2002; (p. 167-177)

Examines the representation of criminality and convicts in the work of George Barrington and argues that his stunningly successful Voyage to Botany Bay (1795) is a significant response to the popular anxiety that convicts are carriers of social contamination and physical disease, at a time when the implicit association was made between criminals and colonial subjects, who needed to be physically segregated from Britain in order to maintain the stability of the domestic order.
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Last amended 16 Mar 2022 09:54:43
Subjects:
  • New South Wales,
  • ca. 1780-1795
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