CLEGG, Thomas Bailey. The Bishop's Scapegoat. London, John Lane 1908. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in gilt black and cream. Minor signs of use, a bit canted; quite good. Au$350

First, probably only, edition of Ballarat bred Clegg's thriller murder melodrama mostly set in New Caledonia. Clegg was a journalist, lawyer and magistrate who in the eighties had investigated the penal system in New Caledonia and the indentured labour industry in Queensland. The cane fields found their way into his 1907 novel 'The Wilderness' and New Caledonian prisoners into this.
It may be a spoiler but I'll tell you anyway: the men on the front cover are the Bishop of Capricornia who murdered his brother-in-law in Paris and the Frenchman sentenced for that murder. But rest easy, there is a twist.

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Japanese posters. 日の丸號繭毛羽取機 [Hinomarugo Mayu Kebatoriki?] n.p. [193-?]. Three colour lithograph posters: 188x65cm on two sheets, two short tears at the bottom repaired; 187x64cm on two sheets, a couple of small repairs and a longer tear repaired at the bottom; 78x53cm, steel bands at top and bottom and hanging loop at the top. sold

These posters - two uncommonly large - for the Hinomaru cocoon fluff remover confirm my notion that among commercial artists those that work with agricultural machinery are the happiest. There is always a sense of relished joy in their work.

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Kawabata Ryushi. 冒険小説双六 [Boken Shosetsu Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1913 (Taisho 2). Colour broadside 79x54cm. A few small holes in the folds; pretty good. Au$300

The new year gift from the boys' magazine Nihon Shonen is called an adventure novel and so it is: action packed and perilous from start to finish.
Kawabata's career took a curious turn during a 1913 stay in America to study western painting. Apparently he was so impressed with the Japanese art he saw in Boston he switched to being a Nihonga painter. Still, he remained being an illustrator for magazines for quite some time. As did most of the early to mid 20th century artists now revered.

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Hosokibara Seiki, Ikebe Hitoshi, Yamada Minoru & Shishido Sako. 家庭円満面白双六 [Katei Enman Omoshiro Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Kobunsha 1924 (Taisho 13). Colour broadsheet 55x79cm. A few pinholes in folds, pretty good. Au$350

A co-operative romp by four well known manga artists, or cartoonists if you like. This was the new year gift from the magazine Omoshiro Kurabu - the Interesting Club.

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Takeda Korai. 倭洋妾横濱美談 [Yamato Rasha Yokohama Bidan]. Tokyo? Kinjudo 1881 (Meiji 14). Three volumes 18x12cm, publisher's colour woodblock wrappers; illustrated by Chikanobu throughout with three frontispieces, a single page and a double page plate in colour in the first volume. Minor signs of use and one annoying smudge on a woman's face but pretty good. sold

Slight maybe but there's a novel, or a play at least, just in those front covers. Yamato Rasha is, I'm told, a soap of women's lives with western men in Yokahama. Even I can tell, from the pictures, that they were lives filled with conflict, devious schemes, jealousy, violence by footwear ... busy indeed.
There is a modern reprint but I find only one entry in worldcat for the original outside Japan.

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Okamoto Kakuji and Inoshita Kisei. 女侠客 玉川お芳 [Onna Kyokaku Nochi Tamagawa Oyoshi]. Osaka, Okamoto Igyokan 1901 (Meiji 34). 21x14cm publisher's woodcut colour illustrated wrapper; 214,[2] and four page publisher's list; folding colour woodcut frontispiece. The book has been damp at some time but is solid and acceptable. sold

The title translates as 'Woman Youxia Tamagawa Oyoshi' - a youxia was an ancient Chinese folk hero warrior so Tamagawa might be called a woman knight. The story is a mystery to me but who can resist that beautiful and ferocious desperado (desperada?). At first I thought she was stabbing her own leg but I worked out the leg belongs to the obscured man behind her.
This is a sokkibon: taken down in shorthand by Inoshita from the performance of the story by the rakugoka - professional story teller - Okamoto. I can tell you there were films with this title made in 1912 and 1937 and later rakugo recordings with the same title but I can't find anything about the plot - book or film.
Worldcat finds no copies of this but it was included in a microfilm collection of popular Meiji novels.

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Madame B*** (Avocat). [Alphonse Momas?]. La Femme Endormie. J. Renold ... a Melbourne (Australie) 1899 [but most likely Paris, 1899]. Octavo contemporary quarter cloth and marbled boards; 180pp. Quite good. sold

At last I've found the third (I've found two others) of the pornographic novels with the imprint of Renold of Melbourne; it's taken a few years. There may be a fourth but I'm yet to find anyone who has seen a copy.
Fake Australian porn, and maybe more effective than real colonial porn, if there is any. 19th and early 20th century Australian erotica so far discovered consists of a few risque novels and postcards adapted or copied from elsewhere. This is doubtless Parisian but it's a startling humourous twist - for a pornographer - in choosing to have this come from what was just about the farthest and most unlikely - least exotic - point on the globe for our smut peddlers. Had anyone in Paris been to Melbourne?
La Femme Endormie is a more than usually creepy exploration of the Pygmalion or artificial woman/sex doll fantasy. An artist creates a perfect sex doll for a wealthy client, naturally falls for it himself and sneaks in to cuckold his customer when he is away. Appended to this is a short two act porn play, Un C. Prete Pour un Rendu.
There seems little doubt among the cognoscenti (viz Patrick Kearney) that Madame B*** is one of many pseudonyms of Alphonse Momas about whom is known little other than he may have been a minor public servant who churned out dozens of pornographic novels before turning to religion and mysticism. Perceau knew him but, since Momas was still alive in 1930, was hardly going to say so in his bibliography of 19th century porn.

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Yanase Masamu & Fujimori Seikichi. 狼へ！ (わが労働) [Okami e! (Waga Rodo)]. Tokyo, Shunjusha 1926 (Taisho 15). 20x14cm, excellent in publisher's illustrated boards and slipcase by Yanase. Spine browned, minor wear to the top of the slipcase; rather good.
Inscribed and signed by Fujimori in September 1926 to the novelist Wada Den (Wada Tsuto). Au$800

First edition of Fujimori's proletarian novel - the title translates as To the Wolf! (my labour) - but, alas, probably more wanted for Yanase's book design these days. As I can't read the book, there's no contest for me. Both were trouble makers and both ended up in trouble - jailed every now and again, in Yanase's case tortured as well.
Yanase, both prodigy and prodigious, was one of the founders of MAVO - now Japan's best known avant-garde group of the early twenties - after membership of futurist and constructivist associations and before moving onto self proclaimed proletarian movements. He abandoned painting in the late twenties - the fine arts were anti-proletarian - and worked only as a graphic artist until the war, which he did not survive.
Wada Den was prominent in the school of farmer or peasant literaure. They both wrote about the working class but Wada was, I've read, no friend to left wing troublemakers.

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JONES, Sir Robert. A bundle of 35 offprints and papers on orthopaedics dating from 1888 to 1931. vp 1888-1931. 35 pieces various sizes, all with original wrappers where issued. Several are inscribed 'With the author's compliments.' Au$400

Doubtless a cache of author's copies. The inscriptions are all in the same hand on publications from different publishers over a number of years. I will include - if wanted - 18 duplicates, all also in excellent shape and some inscribed in the same hand.
Smith is variously called the father of modern orthopaedic surgery or one of the fathers which makes me think that the mother of modern orthopaedic surgery was a magnetic but careless woman.
Most of what's here are offprints from journal publishers but some are privately printed. There should be a list of Smith's contributions to journals in the British edition of the 1957 Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery but I can't get at it. However many papers he wrote, this is a pretty good start to a Robert Smith collection.

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RUSSELL, H.C. [&c]. Observations of the Transit of Venus, 9 December 1874; made at stations in New South Wales. Sydney, Govt Printer 1892. Quarto publisher's illustrated red cloth blocked in gilt & printed in black; xxviii,43pp, frontis. & 40 plates (30 colour lithos, 10 photo plates). A touch of wear around the edges and a hint of insects; an nice, unfoxed copy. sold

Surely the most charming Australian astronomy book, this is world class charming. The binding and colour plates are captivating and sufficiently mysterious to inspire any number of designs; the photo plates of telescopes and the observation camps at Woodford and Eden - with canvas observation domes - are evocative at the least and the twenty reports by observers may well be useful.
The cloth on this book must have been sized with the bug equivalent of catnip. It's hard to find a copy that hasn't been chewed, flecked or both.

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Nine parliamentary papers relating to Chinese on the Victorian gold fields 1856 - 57: Regulations for the Chinese on the Gold Fields ... March 1856; [with] Petition. Chinese Storekeepers ... 2nd December 1856; [with] Supplementary Regulation for the Chinese on the Gold Fields ...June 1857; [with] Petition. Arrest of Chinese Immigration ... July 1857; [with] Petition. Influx of Chinese ... August 1857; [with] Influx of the Chinese. Petition ... August 1857; [with] Influx of the Chinese. Petition ... August 1857; [with] Influx of the Chinese. Petition ... September 1857; [with] Supplementary Regulation for the Chinese on the Gold Fields ...December 1857. Melbourne, Govt printer 1856-57. Foolscap, each a single leaf on blue paper. sold

The six petitions here might give an illusion of even-handedness: there are three from Chinese residents begging for fair treatment and three from dignitaries on behalf of not Chinese residents - two from the mayor of Geelong and one from the local court of Castlemaine - begging to be saved from "the evil effects" of the Chinese "inundation".
There is a supplementary regulation missing: we have regulation VIII and X so presumably IX exists as well. The first seven regulations, issued in March 1856 again might give an illusion of regard but, like all law when read properly (ie by lawyers) make it clear that there is no respite from the decisions of authorities, in this case the Protector of each district.

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Chinese in Australia. A Bill to regulate and restrict the Immigration of Chinese. Sydney, Govt printer 1861. Foolscap; 4pp. sold

This became the "Chinese Immigrants Regulation and Restriction Act of 1861". New South Wales' first anti-Chinese legislation was passed in November and put into effect in late February 1862 to the disgust of the Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal (February 26) who pointed out that an act that imposed a poll tax and fines and at the same time allowed the Governor to remit penalties could not "rise to the dignity of a statute".

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Chinese in Australia. A Bill for the Better Protection of Chinese from insult ill treatment and assault. Sydney, Govt printer 1881. Foolscap, 2pp on one leaf. A bit ragged along the top edge. sold

The "Chinese Protection Act of 1881"; there aren't many documents like this in the history of colonial Australia. In case you are unfamiliar with this but know well the "Influx of Chinese Restriction Act" of the same year there's a simple answer: this never got beyond a second reading. Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly for the period is light on detail: the bill got to a second reading and was withdrawn. I'm led to imagine that it was received with laughter, cries of "SHAME" and/or hostile silence.
There's nothing in the sketchy biography of Archibald Jacob - who introduced the bill - to suggest he was any champion of the Chinese. Maybe he was outraged by bad behavior on the part of "dissolute and evil-minded youths and others" more than the effect on their victims. Maybe I misjudge him.

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Chinese in Australia. Chinese Question: Correspondence, and Report of Conference Held at Sydney, June, 1888. [Hobart] Govt Printer, 1888. Foolscap, modern plain wrapper; 39pp. sold

The Chinese Question (ie how do we get rid of them?) brought the colonies together as few other problems ever could. Gathered here is a useful compilation of official and unofficial correspondence from all the colonies, including letters and petitions from Chinese residents in Australia and news from America about their new treaty with China. The colonies had to find their way round directions from London where measures such as the poll tax were seen as a threat to Chinese-British relations. The result was The Chinese Immigration Restriction Act of 1888.
One point that maybe deserves more attention is that much of the current proud tradition of strict quarantine in Australia has its origin in intercolonial co-operation in declaring ports of embarkation for Chinese immigrants as Infected Places. Prior to this attempts to establish a national quarantine policy had little success.

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YOUNG, Rev. W. Report on the Condition of the Chinese Population in Victoria. Melbourne, Govt Printer 1868. Foolscap folio, stitched as issued; 30pp. sold

By 1868 the Chinese population of Victoria was on the wane - estimated at less than half of its peak at the height of the goldrush - but "vicious practices"were seemingly on the rise. Chief among these were, of course, gambling and opium but their by-products, larceny and robberies, were a growing threat. Young suggested that the decline or disbandment of Chinese Associations had a directly negative effect on crime and has provided a translation of the rules of an association to illustrate to the government the benefit of these associations to the community.
The first part of his report is both valuable and touching in that Chinese translators have provided statistics for each of the areas with Chinese communities; these statistics then are personal and idiosyncratic in their focus, providing the closest thing we have to a Chinese view of themselves at the time. Young includes a report by Dr Clendenning on the condition of Chinese lepers at Ballarat, and then finishes with his own report and suggestions for improvements, including the restitution of 'Headmen', the improvement of interpreters, education in English, Chinese police officers and so on. However, given the "abnormal condition of the great mass" (ie no women), in present circumstances it was best to encourage them to all go home.
Young was an LMS missionary to the Chinese, apparently of Scottish-Malay descent, who had served in Amoy before coming to Victoria in the mid fifties. The impression given by this report and other documents of the period is that he was one of very few non-Chinese in the colony that had any grasp of any Chinese language.

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Chinese in New Zealand. Interim Report (No.I.) of the Chinese Immigration Committee. [with] Interim Report (No.II.) ... [and] Final Report ... with Minutes of Proceedings. Wellington 1871. Three parts foolscap, disbound; 27;15 & 8pp. Au$375

Despite the evidence of expert witnesses like the Otago Commissioner for Crown Lands, J.T. Thomson (16 years in the Straits Settlements), John Maitland (three years in China), Captain Bishop (sailed out of Hong Kong and Whampoa), and James Hector M.D., who together defined the Chinese as morally debased scrofulous and leprous troublemaking polygamists, the counterbalance of contrary evidence and the apparent sense of the committee resulted in the most remarkably sane and humane conclusions I have yet seen in a colonial document on Chinese immigrants. The committee listed 11 points of unproven yellow peril concern and concluded "that there have been no sufficient grounds shown for the exclusion of the Chinese ... or for the imposition of special burdens upon them."
This enlightenment dimmed and went out over the next decade: the Chinese Immigrants Act of 1881 brought New Zealand into line with the less benign Australian colonies. Trove and Worldcat and Copac were unable to find any copy of these though of course a search of the NZ National Library brings them up.

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MOSER, Inspector Maurice ... late of Scotland Yard. The Modern Detective; or Shadows & Shadowland & the Crime Investigator. Vol. 1., No. 1. [all published?]. London, March 9, 1898. 31x25cm publisher's printed wrapper; 20pp; illustrations in half-tone and line. Minor signs of use; rather good. Au$300

All published it seems and rare.Worldcat finds one entry for this one issue and I can't add to that. I would have thought the 1890s was a fine time to start a detective magazine but I suspect a deeper purse than The Modern Detective displays was necessary. Even prizes for a new design of handcuffs and for the solution to the theft of Lady Lackington's jewels could not spur sales enough to justify a second number. Not even the appearance of The Misadventures of Sheerluck Gnomes by a T.P. Stafford.
Inspector Moser (late of Scotland Yard) published a book or two of ostensible real life stories from his time at the yard a few years earlier and an article on handcuffs in the Strand in 1894 but vanishes into the shadowland of literary hacks after this.

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Blackbirding. James Patrick Murray. Brig "Carl" - James Patrick Murray. (correspondence, &c, as to admission of Murray as an approver.) Sydney, Govt Printer 1873. Foolscap, disbound in a modern plain wrapper; 16pp. Au$200

Atrocity, massacre, mass murder - you choose. Seventy or more kidnapped men from the Solomons and Bougainville trying to break out of the hold of the Carl were shot from the deck and thrown, dead or alive, into the sea. Murray, owner of the Carl, when evidence of kidnapping during the second voyage began to surface, discovered religion and turned Queen's Evidence.
The captain and members of the crew were tried in Sydney. Two were sentenced to death but of course not hung. Murray's father wrote to the Melbourne Herald that if anyone went to the gallows, his son should be the first. Murray disappeared from Sydney before the trial was finished and not much more is known about him. Collected here are sworn statements given by Murray and others to the Consul in Levuka and proceedings of a Naval Court held in Levuka before sending the prisoners to Sydney.
Reading Murray's account I wonder that he wasn't strung up on the spot, for mealy-mouthed hypocrisy as well as murder. He must have had some persuasive skill not conveyed in the words themselves.

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Nakamura Kisen, Inoue Seiji & Yokoyama Kei. 漫画旅行 - 日本全国 [Manga Ryoko - Nihonzenzu ... ]. [Tokyo c1930?]. Ten colour printed broadside maps, each 55x77cm, bound together with a hand lettered front wrapper. Stitching broken, last map loose; there are tears and old, neat enough, repairs. Not bad. Au$500

Nakamura, Inoue and Yokoyama collaborated on a series of these manga maps of Japan, likely thirteen altogether. I have had a couple of these separately and wondered whether they fit together to make a giant romp round Japan. I still don't know but now I know why I have seen many single maps with the right edge oddly trimmed: it was obviously a thing to bind them like this.
I've been too lazy to work out which areas are here but I did recognise the Fukushima map, something none of us will see repeated: a fun tourist map of the Fukushima and Miyagi areas.

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Advertising & trade marks. A Japanese album of labels, trade marks, etc. n.p. early to mid c20th. 29x24cm cross stitch cloth album with 73 examples mounted on 24 black card leaves. Collector's ex libris stamp with the name 'Nanbu' on the front endpaper. Au$400

A carefully collected and presented gathering of labels, wrappers and similar trade mark advertising ephemera - from translucent tissue to stiif card - dating from early in the century into the 1930s.

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BRADSHAW, Lewis. Modern Mansions. A solution of the housing, the servant, and the drink problems, by a rational, an evolutionary, and a scientific method of housing reform. Kettering, Northamptonshire Printing [1908]. Octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper (spine ends neatly repaired); 80pp, six plates (five folding). Au$500

Bradshaw has, with good judgment, seeded sensible British calm through his title - rational, evolutionary, scientific - but this is, for England, a radical little book. Bradshaw proposes housing along lines not just co-operative but communal - he goes so far as to use the term 'collective'. He diverges from the high density urban solutions and the Garden City ideals then predominant among pioneering town planners. Proposed here are short rows of villas or terrace houses - possibly built using Edison's prefabricated concrete system - radiating out from a central amenities hall, these in turn radiating out from a circular town centre of markets and shops.
There are some intriguing parallels here with Garnier's schemes, worked out at about the same time but not published for another decade - given we leave out the epic grandeur of Garnier.

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BAKER, Richard T. The Australian Flora in Applied Art. Part I The Waratah. Sydney, Tech Museum 1915. Small quarto, very good in publisher's cloth; numerous colour & b/w illustrations. Au$250

Part I is all published and apparently all Baker ever planned to publish. The book was part of his fervid campaign to have the Waratah made the national flower, and his chance to champion the designs of Lucien Henry which he had recovered from under a tub in a Surry Hills washhouse. It is a pity he never continued the series but he has produced probably Australia's most attractive book on applied arts. Lucien Henry's own pattern book remains unpublished, few of his realised designs survive .. this is about as close as we get.

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Asian labour in Queensland. Seven parliamentary papers relating to the introduction of Chinese or 'Coolie' labourers from India: Asiatic Labour ... 1861; [with] Asiatic Labour (Despatches relative to.) ... 1861; [with] Coolie Immigration (petition in favor of.) ... 1861; [with] Chinese and Coolie Immigration ... Petition ... 1862; [with] Immigration of Chinese and Indian Coolies ... 1875; with Correspondence respecting Proposed Introduction of Labourers from British India ... 1884; [with] Labourers from British India (Further correspondence ...) ... 1884. Brisbane, Govt printers 1861 - 84. Foolscap, stitched, stapled or loose as issued. 4pp on three leaves; 15pp; 1pp; 1pp; 17pp; 16pp; 4pp. Au$450

Almost 60 foolscap pages of depressing reading as the landowners of Queensland seek to introduce the cheapest possible labour while the rest of white Queensland seeks to keep them out. Just by the way, was it cheaper to buy and keep a slave or import indentured labour? A good field hand in antebellum America was a serious investment. By the 1880s it becomes apparent that Queensland governments seek not to offend powerful landowners or risk the outrage of an electorate confronted with unwhite immigrants; they are busy sidestepping.
The early petitions make the point that it would be "unjust, even if it were practicable" for any Anglo-Saxon to "perform field labour under a tropical sun" while a thriving Queensland cotton industry stocked with Coolies would go a long way toward the abolition of slavery elsewhere.

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Telescope catalogue. Emil Busch A.G. Catalogue IVB. Portable Tourist, Hunting, Naval and Military Telescopes ... Rathenow, Busch [192-?]. 28x20cm publisher's printed wrapper; 32pp including three blanks at the end, illustrations throughout. Au$100

If you have time to burn you can spend a lot of it online looking at the trade in and conversations about Busch cameras, binoculars, microscopes and telescopes. When it comes to their telescopes you find a lot of guessing and the occasional wish for a catalogue to consult.

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PHILBY, H. St J. The Empty Quarter, being a description of the Great South Desert of Arabia known as Rub' al Khali. London, Constable 1933. Octavo publisher's olive cloth; photo illustrations, 3 folding maps. A bit of spotting to the foredge and a few of the prefatory pages; a rather good copy. Au$300

First edition.

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Exhibition, Kyoto 1895. Yoshiwara Takeo. 第四回勧業博覧会太極殿図 [Daiyonkai Kangyo Hakurankai Taikyoku Zenzu?]. Kyoto, Ide Shozo 1895 (Meiji 28) Lithograph 42x56, folded. A scattering of small wormholes and signs of use; not bad. Au$125

A bird's-eye view of the 4th National Industrial Exhibition held in Kyoto from April to the end of July 1895. Five of these national exhibitions were held between 1877 and 1903; the first three in Tokyo and, after some provincial agitation, this in Kyoto and the fifth in Osaka. Each was bigger, better and more crowded than their predecessor.

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Uemura Rokuro & Yoshida Keisuke 越中産紙手鑑 [Etchusanshishukan]. Washi Kenkyukai 1954. 30x22cm publisher's wrappers and folding cloth case; 45pp, three folding maps and two plates on various papers and 56 paper samples of various sizes. 250 copies were produced and were not for sale. An excellent copy. Au$300

Etchu washi are handmade papers that have been made in the Toyama region for quite a few hundred years.

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HASKOLL, W. Davis. Railway Construction, Second Series. Also Railways in the East, and generally in high thermometrical regions. London, Atchley 1864. Two volumes quarto, publishers blindstamped cloth (one spine repaired); iv,201pp, 91 plates (most folding). Some spotting but quite a good copy. Au$650

Despite the misleading title this is a re-issue of 'Railways in the East' - published the year before - with a new title page. Why it was re-issued this way is puzzling. Essential for the engineer in Asia Minor, Haskoll's earlier work 'Railway Construction' laid out the principles, 'Railways in the East' applies the lessons. With chapters on labour and materials, a chapter specific to Turkey, tunnels, bridges, stations, docks and jetties, rolling stock, masonry ... all illustrated from working drawings of executed works.

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Nakazawa Hiromitsu, Kobayashi Shokichi & Okano Sakae. 東洋未来雙六 [Toyo Mirai Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Hakubunkan 1907 (Meiji 40). Colour printed broadside, 55x78cm. Rather good. Au$750

A view, or a panoply of views, of a future Asia. Some of these vignettes of what's to come are obvious enough - schoolgirls at rifle drill and sumo wrestlers in striped bathers - but a few seem fairly recondite to me. I'm not sure how much is optimistic, how much is dire warning and how much is wearily stoic.
Nakazawa, Kobayashi and Okano, still young, had been fellow students at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, and of Kuroda Seiki, and collaborated on the five volume Nihon Meisho Shasei Kiko, issued over several years.

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Yamashita Kishi(?) 世界未来戦双六 [Sekai Mirai-Sen Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shogaku Gonensei 1937 (Showa 12). Colour broadside 54x789cm. Minor signs of use, quite good. Au$400

Despite the grim colour scheme - a feature of the late thirties - this is a heart-racing view of future war. It was the new year gift from the elementary school magazine for 5th graders, Shogaku Gonensei.

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Maruo Shiyo. 名探偵切名競ベ双六 [Mei Tantei Setsu-Mei Kurabe Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Omoshiro Kurabu 1926 (Taisho 15). Colour broadsheet 55x79; some marks, splits in folds and small holes. Used but not bad. On the back is a monochrome baseball game that looks dull. Au$300

Maybe not the best copy of this captivating detective sugoroku but since I can't trace another copy I won't take the chance on waiting for a better one. This was the new year gift from the magazine Omoshiro Kurabe - the Interesting Club.

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Kon Wajiro & Yoshida Kenkichi. モデルノロヂオ - 考現学 [Moderunorojio - Kogengaku]. Tokyo, Shun'yudo 1930 (Showa 5). Large octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in white, red and black, chipped dustwrapper with a couple of old tape marks inside; 361pp, profusely illustrated throughout, a few photo or colour plates. Light browning; a remarkably good copy of a book that invites continual thumbing. sold

First printing. There may be a better copy of this out there but I'm yet to see it. This is an extraordinary book; the gospel of Modernology, hard to find in decent condition and very hard with a dustwrapper. Kon and Yoshida have compiled an encyclopaedia, surely unsurpassed, of the apparently ordinary, of the people of Tokyo, fit to provoke unseemly enthusiasm in theoreticians and urban planners ever since. I gather that Kon's thesis - born out of watching the people of Tokyo begin to rebuild after the 1923 earthquake and fire - is that those who do the planning, designing and official building know nothing of what people actually do, what they own and how they use those things - how they live and who they are.

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LOCKYER, Norman. The Sun's Place in Nature. London, Macmillan 1897. Octavo, excellent in publisher's cloth; 360pp, 82 illustrations. Au$125

The last of Lockyer's major books on the sun, all of which are fundamental in the history of astrophysics. While his intention is to record the most recent researches and conclusions (many of them "entirely novel .. very close criticism was to be expected, and, indeed to be hoped for"), he does lace a fair amount of history through the book. This includes accounts of his discovery of helium in 1868, subsequent researches by himself and others, and Ramsay's discovery of terrestrial helium in 1895. Later chapters focus on the classification of stars, new laboratory work and the rival hypotheses of himself and Vogel.

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GUERINI, Vincenzo. A History of Dentistry, from the most ancient times until the end of the eighteenth century. Philadelphia, Lea & Febiger 1909. Large octavo, excellent in publisher's green cloth; 20 plates, 104 illustrations through the text. Au$200

First and best edition. I notice that Guerini is still being quoted and occasionally argued with in recent papers on dental history.

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