In 1832, John Gould produced A Century of birds from the Himalaya Mountains, the plates ‘drawn from nature and on stone by E. Gould’, and five years later, five volumes on the birds of Europe with 448 lithographic plates, most by Elizabeth Gould with 68 by Edward Lear. The bird specimens his brothers- in-law in NSW sent to him formed the core of a publication on Australian birds he began to issue in 1837–38, with plates by his wife, but discontinued when he resolved that their next project should be to produce a magnum opus on The Birds of Australia. The couple decided to undertake a voyage to Australia.