New Holland journal, November 1833-October 1834

Locate

My Reading Lists:

Create a new list

Check-In

×Close
Add an optional check-in date. Check-in dates are used to track yearly reading goals.
Today


Buy this book

Last edited by MARC Bot
July 15, 2024 | History

New Holland journal, November 1833-October 1834

Baron Charles von Hugel was an Austrian diplomat, army officer and courtier, and was celebrated across Europe, during the mid-nineteenth century, for his magnificent gardens and his cultivation of exotic plants, including the fashionable 'New Holland plants'.

In 1831 he set out from Europe on six years of travel to mend his broken heart. His betrothed, the Hungarian Countess Melanie Zichy-Ferraris had broken their engagement and become the third Princess Metternich. In the course of several years of travelling the world, he spent most of 1834 in the young Australian colonies of Swan River, Van Diemen's Land, Norfolk Island and New South Wales, observing the flora and collecting the seeds for his gardens. This is Hugel's journal of his travels on this continent.

Translated into English for the first time and previously unpublished, it is an insightful record of the flora he found here and the people he met, interspersed with acute and generally unflattering commentaries on British administration, the transportation system, Sydney social life, missionary efforts, and the treatment of Aborigines.

Apart from the romantic melancholy which occasionally colours Hugel's journal, his account of the colonies is unique, because he saw them from a perspective quite unlike that of most observers of the time. He was an Austrian aristocrat, a devout Catholic, a passionate supporter of the reactionary Hapsburg Empire and an intimate of the all-powerful Prince Metternich - no friend of the new 'democracies'.

He hobnobbed with all the notables wherever he went, but also had many encounters - often described in comic dialogue - with convicts and ex-convicts, bushrangers, shanty-keepers, and common folk. An indefatigable traveller, on horseback and on foot, he also drove a gig over the primitive road over the Blue Mountains, and far and wide in the interior.

Back in Europe, Hugel's descriptions of the vegetation of this 'great southern land mass' were to inspire Ferdinand von Mueller, later to become director of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens. Hugel's botanical influence is still evident also in a number of Australian plant names, such as Acacia huegelii and Hardenbergia, which was named after his sister, Countess von Hardenberg.

Buy this book

Edition Availability
Cover of: New Holland Journal
New Holland Journal: November 1833-October 1834 (Miegunyah Press Series, No. 17)
February 1995, Melbourne University
Hardcover in English
Cover of: New Holland journal, November 1833-October 1834
New Holland journal, November 1833-October 1834
1994, Melbourne University Press at the Miegunyah Press in association with the State Library of New South Wales, Melbourne Univ Pr
in English

Add another edition?

Book Details


Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. 474-483) and indexes.
Translated from German.

Published in
[Carlton, Vic.]
Series
Miegunyah Press series ;, no. 17
Genre
Diaries.

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
994.02
Library of Congress
DU99 .H84 1994, DU99.H84 1994

The Physical Object

Pagination
xxi, 539 p. :
Number of pages
539

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL1234555M
ISBN 10
052284474X
LCCN
94237426
OCLC/WorldCat
32328812, 33101909
Library Thing
351753
Goodreads
3034753

Community Reviews (0)

Feedback?
No community reviews have been submitted for this work.

Lists

This work does not appear on any lists.

History

Download catalog record: RDF / JSON
July 15, 2024 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
July 31, 2020 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
February 28, 2020 Edited by MARC Bot remove fake subjects
July 31, 2019 Edited by MARC Bot associate edition with work OL3697410W
December 10, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page