By Hon. Andrew Garran
Illustrated Under The Supervision Of Frederic B. Schell
Published by Picturesque Atlas Publishing Company Limited: Sydney & Melbourne 1886 - 1888
"The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia is one of the grandest and most ambitious illustrated publishing projects produced in colonial Australia, conceived as a definitive visual and descriptive record of Australasia in the late nineteenth century. Edited by the Hon. Andrew Garran, a prominent journalist, historian, and federation advocate, the work set out to present Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific colonies to both local and international audiences at a moment when colonial identity, prosperity, and progress were being confidently asserted. Issued in parts between 1886 and 1888 and later bound into three substantial volumes, the Atlas combines geographic, historical, industrial, and social commentary with an encyclopaedic scope.
The illustrations, produced under the supervision of Frederic B. Schell, are the heart of the work and remain its greatest legacy. Hundreds of finely executed engravings depict cities, towns, landscapes, ports, pastoral stations, mines, public buildings, and scenes of everyday colonial life, offering an unparalleled visual record of Australasia before the turn of the twentieth century. These images were based on photographs, sketches, and on-site observations, capturing both the optimism of urban development and the vastness of the natural environment, from bustling colonial capitals to remote interiors and coastlines.
Although this set lacks the unbound or loose maps originally issued with some copies, the Atlas remains a landmark of Australian publishing and visual historiography. Its scale, ambition, and quality place it among the most important illustrated works of the colonial period, prized for its historical insight and rich pictorial content rather than cartography alone. This three-volume set would strongly appeal to collectors of Australian colonial history, illustrated books, and nineteenth-century Australiana, as well as libraries and researchers interested in the visual culture of the pre-Federation era."
