Gould's Book of Fish (Hardcover)

William Buelow Gould was a forger and thief sentenced to life imprisonment in a penal colony in Van Diemen's Land -- now Tasmania. After six months he escaped and boarded a whaler for the Americas, but before long his adventures landed him back in prison. The prison doctor Lempriere utilized Gould's painting talents to create an illustrated taxonomy of the country's exotic sea creatures, which Lempriere madly believed would ensure his place in history and the Royal Society. Gould's book was then lost and re-created, destroyed and hidden, and finally resurfaced in the present day, littered with Gould's scrawls recording his unutterably strange life -- part freewheeling picaresque, part Gothic horror -- and that of his country, a penal colony, settlement, and magical space populated by generals, visionaries, and madmen.

Hardcover. English. Grove Press. 2001, 1st US Edition. 404pp. In good condition with good dw.