David Scott Mitchell and Australia's First Book

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The bicentenary of the publication of Australia's first book was noted in an article in Margin in 2002. (1) The Mitchell Library in Sydney is the proud custodian of two copies of this very rare book with the rather prosaic title of New South Wales General Standing Orders. (2) They were bequeathed to the Library one hundred years ago this year by David Scott Mitchell, one of Australia's greatest book collectors. The story of Mitchell's acquisition of these copies has been told by several writers, including J.A. Ferguson and Anne Robertson, but with some inaccuracies and omissions. (3) Mitchell was a passionate collector, but a poor keeper of paper records who depended almost entirely on his excellent memory to know what he had in his collection. It is now difficult to establish a chain of ownership for many of the items which he donated to the Library.

Fortunately we know, through the records of others, some details about how …