John Lort Stokes (1812–85) was a naval officer on board H.M.S. Beagle - the same ship that had carried naturalist Charles Darwin around the world in 1831–6. Stokes served on that expedition and on the following commission, which was a survey of Australia in which the crew was charged with discovering more about the largely unknown land mass. The expedition set off in 1837 and Stokes did not return to England until 1843, when he began work on this two-volume account of the voyage, which was published in 1846. The work provides a detailed narrative of the journey, including interaction with indigenous peoples and observations about the natural world in Australia, making it an important source about the early years of the European colony. Volume 1 covers the exploration of north-west Australia, and Volume 2 describes a journey up the Victoria River, and a voyage north to the Indonesian archipelago.
