Biblionews / the Book Collectors' Society of Australia

Call Number
JAF 015.5 BIB
Created/Published
[Sydney] : The Book Collectors' Society of Australia, 1947-1964
Issue
Vol. 11 No. 4 (April 1958)
Images
6
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Text

Book Collectors' Society of Australia  

BIBLIONEWS  

April, 1958  

146th Issue  

Vol. 11, No. 4.  

"LEGENDS OF AUSTRALIA” JOHN LANG  

Curiosity of Colonial Literature  

J.W. Earnshaw  

Early in 1842 the Sydney press carried an announcement by James Tegg, well known  

and enterprising bookseller of George Street, that he would commence publication on  

February Ist of No. of Legends of Australia, to be completed in twelve fortnightly  

parts at one shilling each* Mr. Tegg’s project was not altogether successful. Only  

four parts in three issues appeared: Nos. and in February, 1842 and nos. and.  

4as one issue in the following month. There were 128 pages of text altogether, very  

well printed, and each issue was bound up in nicely embellished wrapper which shovzed  

that local printers were not lagging behind their London contemporaries.  

Legends of Australia, an anonymous work of fiction, is one of the rarest items in  

Australian literature. The only sets recorded are one in the Mitchell Library and  

another in the Public Library of New South Wales. An incomplete run is in the collection  

of Mr. Justice Ferguson. It is so little known that the Public Library set, which had  

its identifying wrappers removed when bound in with other pamphlets at an early date,  

was listed in ’’Australasian Bibliography” (1888) as published in ’’London, n.d. ”). Nor  

can any reference to it be traced other than the listing in Mr. Justice Ferguson’s  

’’Bibliography of Australia”.  

The first legend, entitled ’’Frederick Charles Howard”, has strong claims to being  

the first novel with an authentic Australian background published in N.S.W. It is the  

story of Hovzard, the young and aristocratic murderer, who was transported in 1836 and  

assigned to squatter on station far to the south of Bong Bong in the wild Shoalhaven  

country. He is followed to the colony by his beautiful and equally aristocratic wife,  

Isabella; after many disappointments and vicissitudes usually attendant upon such ex-  

peditions she traces her husband to his hut in the wilds. Finally they find felicity  

and contentment under the wide, blue Australian sky.  

The second legend, ’’Edward Nox”, runs for but six pages before it abruptly ends  

and we are forever left wondering why the mysterious New South Welshman, Ned Nox, was  

travelling in his private carriage from Paris to Brussels one bleak February Say in the  

year 1833.  

There is much to suggest that John Lang, first Australian-born novelist, was the  

author of Legends of Australia. Born in Sydney in 1816, second generation Australian,  

as boy he enjoyed all the material advantages of wealthy '’emancipist’ family connections.  

At an early age he showed exceptional talent and literary bent which resulted in the  

publication in Sydney, in 1835? of his excellent verse translation of Horace’s First  

Satire. Only one complete copy (in the Ferguson Collection) is known of what would  

probably be the first separate publication of translation from the classics by any  

Australian. The title page reads: ’’Dedicated to W.T. Cope, Esq., Head Master Sydney  

College by his pupil, John Lang (Latin quotation) J.C. Austin, Litho® 15 Hunter Street.”  

The translation is headed ’’Against the Inconsistency of Man and Avarice.” For two  

successive years John Lang won the Classics medal at the Sydney College.  

Intended for the Law, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1838 and was  

admitted to the English Bar in 1841. He returned to Sydney with his well-born English  

wife in October of that year. But here he found that the cleavage in colonial society  

between ’emancipist’ and ’pure Merino® was such as to hinder the full enjoyment of his  

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http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2999686829

APA citation

Book Collectors' Society of Australia. (1947). Biblionews Retrieved August 16, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2999686829

MLA citation

Book Collectors' Society of Australia. Biblionews [Sydney]: The Book Collectors' Society of Australia, 1947. Web. 16 August 2025 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2999686829>

Harvard/Australian citation

Book Collectors' Society of Australia. 1947, Biblionews The Book Collectors' Society of Australia, [Sydney] viewed 16 August 2025 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2999686829

Wikipedia citation

{{Citation
  | author1=Book Collectors' Society of Australia.
  | title=Biblionews
  | year=1947
  | section=v. ; 29 cm.
  | issn=1529-1715
  | issue=Vol. 11 No. 4 (April 1958)
  | location=[Sydney]
  | publisher=The Book Collectors' Society of Australia
  | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2999686829
  | id=nla.obj-2999686829
  | access-date=16 August 2025
  | via=Trove
}}

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