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Australian porn? Va T'en!

Madame B*** (Avocat). [Alphonse Momas?] Alcove Ouverte ou le Menage de l'Avenir. J. Renold ... a Melbourne (Australie) 1899 [but not]. Octavo contemporary (original?) plain wrapper (front wrapper detached); 151,[1] & six pages of publisher's advertisements. Natural browning of the paper but all rather good. Perceau (184) described his copy in plain cream wrappers, this is in silk grained powder blue. sold

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 - for a pornographer - twist 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 someone been to Melbourne and come back soured and derisive? Maybe worked for the printer-publisher Reynolds?
Of the six other titles advertised at the back I've traced single copies of three, two of which have the Melbourne imprint and one the more expected fictive "Temple de Cythère à Paphos". Of our title I've traced two copies, one in the BN Enfer and one in Canada.
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 erotic novels before turning to religion and mysticism.

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>和西十體以呂波 [Wasei Jutai Iroha]. Tokyo, Yoshidaya Bunzaburo 1871 [Meiji 4]. 165x63mm, publisher's wrapper with title label (rumpled and forgivably grubby); 30pp accordian folding. Used but more than decent copy. Au$475

A nifty little pocket book - that opens right to left like western books - teaching how to write English letters but not in English. This teaches how to write Japanese phonetically with the English or romanised alphabet - what was to become romaji. The Portugese missionaries had formulated a romanised system so that missionaries could instruct their Japanese victims without having to learn how to read Japanese but once they were tossed out of Japan such a system was quickly forgotten. It was only with the Meiji restoration and orders from the top that modernisation must follow that the idea of making Japanese intelligible to westerners became a desirable skill. At the end are numbers, the twelve animals of the zodiac - more less, unfamiliar characters and spelling defeated the writer or block cutter on a few - and the seasons and points of the compass.
This seems rare, both in and outside Japan. OCLC finds no copies and my searches of Japanese libraries finds only one copy - in the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

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CATLIN, George. Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life. London, Kegan Paul 1891. Octavo publisher's cloth (tips rubbed, a bit marked); 102pp, 29 illustrations by Catlin through the text. Title browned; a very decent copy. Au$100

A late edition, called the ninth. Its best form is not the first New York edition (1861, called The Breath of Life) but the 1862 London printing as a 'manu-graph' - a facsimile of Catlin's autograph. But any edition of this endearing admonition is worth having. Catlin's gift to the civilized world is simple to enunciate - sleep with your mouth shut. The theory and practice are little more complex, but the benefits from doing this are astounding: no more premature death, death of children, no more idiots, lunatics, deaf, dumb, or hunchbacks. This "most important motto which human language can convey" was learned from example during his years of ethnographic labours among some 150 tribes of "wild people" in North and South America. He admits, though, the evidence that the exemplary sanitary habits of these people gave them no protection against small-pox and whiskey.

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>Catalogue - Furoshiki. Gunkishirishu [Ensign Mark], Tokyo. 愛国号 [Aikokugo - more or less Patriotic Issue]. Tokyo, Gunkishirishu [193-?]. Oblong quarto publisher's cloth (somewhat mottled); two leaves of text, 32 plates each with a pattern (14 colour, the rest in various monochromes); 12 fabric swatches on one leaf and a page of examples of characters. Au$165

Furoshiki are decorated gift wrapping cloths, which have a fairly long history in Japan. While labelled as the patriotic series only one is overtly militaristic. I think the theme is more love of country - there is nothing western here. They have sample trade names and inscriptions in eight styles.

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>Catalogue - uniforms, clothes &c. Chiba Shokai, Tokyo &c. Catalogue - カタログ. Chiba Shokai [c1930]. Octavo publisher's colour printed wrapper; 40pp, illustrated throughout; printed in blue. A vertical fold; quite a good copy. Au$75

A winter catalogue for the new Japan as nationalism and militarism enveloped society; this contains reserve army uniforms and accessories, uniformlike overcoats, sensible and sober suits and workwear, like dungarees and overalls. The footwear is mostly sturdy boots and traditional wear is utilitarian. At the end are three pages of tents.

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Yamanaka Kichirobe. 模様雛形難波の梅 [Moyo Hinagata Naniwa No Ume]. [Tokyo or Osaka 1886?]. Small quarto by size (245x185mm) publisher's decorated wrapper (not a printed title slip; spine backed with Japanese paper some time ago); colour woodblock title, three pages of text, two colour woodblocks of kimonoed women and children, 60 colour woodblocks of kimono designs, one with added embossing, on double pages in the long antiquated reverse form: folded in the gutter and pasted together at the outside edge. Au$850

I'd say that this is the first of three volumes of a pattern book of Osaka kimono designs but it it isn't quite. The copy of Moyo Hinagata Naniwa No Ume in three volumes that I've found is clearly labelled first, middle and last on each wrapper title, does not have the three introductory pages of text that are in this, and the last four plates in this are the first four in the second volume. To complicate this more Yamanaka published a remarkably similar kimono pattern book in Osaka the same year with title that indicates it is the latest designs from the city. The peculiarities of the binding could lead to a long and inconclusive discussion of issues, regional distribution, remainders and mistakes. Perhaps these things were put out in forms to fit every pocket and taste.

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Catalogue - Chocolates. Rowntree & Co., York. Export 1930. Illustrated List of Rowntree's Chocolates in Fancy & Standard net weight boxes. The company 1930. Quarto colour illustrated wrapper (somewhat worn); 40pp and four page price list, profusely illustrated throughout in colour. Shabby but complete and acceptable, and very cheerful. Au$50

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KENTISH, Thomas. The Complete Art of Firework-Making. The Pyrotechnist's Treasury. London, Chatto & Windus 1899. Octavo publisher's decorated blue cloth blocked in silver and gilt; xiv,218pp and 32 page publisher's list, frontispiece and 24 plates. A couple of insignificant marks, an outstanding copy. Au$950

Third edition of one of the most sacred texts of fireworks, first published in 1878 and extended to its present form in 1887.

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>KOCH, Mathias. Vorschlage zur Erzielung grosserer Sicherung vor Feuersgefahr vorzuglich auf dem Lande durch umfassende Benutzung von chemischen, technischen und anderen zweckdienlichen Hulfsmitteln. Vienna, Hirschfeld 1836. Octavo, later but not recent cloth and boards with the title panel of the wrapper mounted; 78pp and folding frontispiece. An appealing copy with the bookplate and impressive stamp - this on the back of the title - of Franz, Count (later Prince) of Thun and Hohenstein. Au$400

Only edition of this rare critical - often very critical - review of current practice in fire protection and firefighting and proposals for improvements. Koch covers a lot in a fairly short space: building materials; protective gear; insurance. He describes and illustrates a new and cheap pump and promotes an 'artificial water', seemingly based on lye.

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>[JACSON or JACKSON, Maria Elizabeth]. The Florist's Manual, or, hints for the construction of a gay flower garden. With observations on the best methods of preventing the depredations of insects. London, for Henry Colburn 1816. Octavo, uncut in publisher's boards with title label on the spine; 74,[2 publisher's list]pp, two folding plans for flower gardens. Rear endpaper removed, still a nice copy. Au$165

First edition of Miss Jacson's most successful book; it ran to at least three editions. According to a great-nephew Maria and her sister Frances took up their pens to bail out their feckless cleric brother, Shallcross; Maria with botany and Frances with novels. It took twenty years or more for Shallcross to drink himself to death so they each wrote four or five books between the mid 1790s and the early 1820s. The booklist at the end announces her sister's new novel 'Rhoda'.
A mix of taste manual and practical gardening this is, according to diligent feminist historians, one of the first gardening books for women written by a woman. Miss Jacson deplores both the habit of ladies leaving the layout of their gardens to the taste of their head-gardeners and the fad for American plants "with their names painted on large headed pegs". Such things "will not produce a gay flower-garden".
The consensus is that 'Jacson' is the correct spelling. Librarians of the world take note.

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>The House Decorator and School of Design ... Vol 1. [No.1 to No.26]. London, Cecil Brooks, June to December 1880. 26 issues quarto, together in contemporary half calf (worn, front cover detached); each issue 16pp, illustrated throughout with illustrations, plans and designs; an additional double sheet of designs on coloured papers added to number one. With the added title and index issued at the completion of the volume. Au$900

A fair slab of the complete run of this uncommon trade journal it seems. I've found one record of 62 numbers (the V&A) finishing in August 1881; one of 54; one record of 29 numbers; and one indeterminate record that may or may not include numbers from 1881. Apart from the V&A and the Bard Graduate Center (54 issues), none of the expected architecture and design libraries have anything.
A penny paper for the working man maybe but not old fashioned. Designs are up to date, if not startling, showing the incursion of Japonism and the aesthetic movement, and technical progress and modern concerns like sanitation are front and centre.
The title is misleading, this is for all trades - painters, plumbers and gasfitters head the list on the masthead of early issues; architects, builders and cabinetmakers take over later on. Trade news was gleaned from as far away as Chicago and Melbourne, which suggests some circulation beyond the home counties and midlands. From Melbourne came a report of a Yellow Peril meeting by furniture makers demanding that all government contracts are for "European workmen" only.

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REISNER, G.A. [George Andrew]. Models of Ships and Boats. Cairo, Institut Francaise d'Archeologie 1913. Largish quarto half morocco (wear to extremities; original printed wrappers bound in at the end); xxviii,171pp, 33 photo plates, 389 illustrations through the text. Catalogue General des Antiquites Egyptiennes du Musee du Caire 4798-4976 et 5034-5200. Au$400

An exemplary study of the boat models found in Egyptian tombs, in turn the starting point in any investigation of the design and construction of real boats and ships in ancient Egypt. Reisner was at the forefront of the new generation of American archeologists. According to the Dictionary of Art Historians he "devised his own method of documentation, more elaborate than that of Sir Flinders Petrie [and] his method became the most methodical used in Egyptian excavations". He "died, almost idyllically, in his sleep at the Giza site, in the shadow of the great Pyramid" in 1942.

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[ATKINSON, Henry Dresser]. Jottings of Tasmanian Bird-Life. n.p. [Tasmania, offprint? c1890]. Octavo, stapled; drop title; 16pp (last blank). Au$50

The National Library's dating - one of the two copies found by Trove - should be ignored. Atkinson - clergyman, son of a clergyman and father of clergymen - gets an entry in Whittell but no bibliography; his brother gets a brief bibliography.

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MONTGOMERY, A. Geological Notes in and Around Launceston. Launceston, printed at the Examiner &c, 1892. Octavo publisher's self wrapper; 12pp. Natural Science Association of Northern Tasmania. Au$50

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>Surfing film. Scenic Australia. Surfing - Australian Style. Norman S. Little, Sydney [c1960?]. 8mm colour film on reel in original colour printed box. Apparently in excellent shape with the original lead-in title at the beginning of the film intact. Au$220

Some two to two and a half minutes of maybe otherwise lost surf footage - "from an entirely new angle" - presuming it runs at 24 frames per second. The Norman S. Little Scenic Film Division, of Erskine Street Sydney, obviously made films designed for producers of newsreels, travelogues, documentaries and the like. They list fourteen other titles on the back of the box, mostly of life and landscape in and around Sydney, and promise interstate and Pacific Island films to come. That the name would remain unknown to the public is simple enough but I can't find any record of Norman S. Little and his films anywhere. He seems unknown to the National Film and Sound Archives, and everywhere else I can think to look.

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>Nakagawa Shuzo. 人体美の新構成 [Jintaibi no Shin Kosei - more or less: A New Construction of Beauty for the Human Body]. Tokyo, Taiyo-sha 1932 [Showa 7]. 310x225mm, 13 double page card sheets, loose as issued in publisher's colour illustrated portfolio with a naked woman leaping the mounted title volvelle and a silver and black checker pattern down the edge and on the back. The sheets consist of the title and preliminary text on one, and twelve mounted photo plates facing a page of text and diagram. First page - the title - browned, minor signs of use; a pretty good copy. Au$1,250

Beguiling and not a little mysterious. Clearly a theoretical concept of some heft as been applied in place of the usual flimsy excuses to photograph naked young women but I'm not sure what it is apart from the application of geometric forms to the human frame. As far as I know Japan had no previous history of the nude in art detached from the everyday - that is when the everyday includes ferocious porn and delirous nightmare. There is a sea of recent writing about notions of modernism, eroticism, popular culture, photography and design in Japan between the wars; surely some space has been given to this shining example of all of them.
Nakagawa published another book on the human body in art and designed or illustrated some of Tanizaki's novels but nothing else can I find about him.

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WILSON, John Cook. Statement and Inference, with other philosophical papers ... edited from the mss &c ... memoir and selected correspondence. Oxford Univ Press 1926. Two volumes octavo, very good in publisher's cloth and slightly chipped and frayed dustwrappers. Au$200

First edition. The only substantial collection of Wilson's work, published posthumously. A pity it does not include his 1890s manuals of military cycling.

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>Rand, McNally & Co.'s Pictorial Guide to Chicago ... what to see and how to see it. NY, Rand McNally 1888. Octavo illustrated wrapper; 112pp including advertisements; illustrations and maps (one folding). A used but decent enough copy, complete with the large folding map at the end. This has a few tears but is all there. Au$150

Maybe the third edition? A few editions appeared between 1884 and 1893. The large map is dated 1889 which seems standard for this edition.

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The Yarrangobilly Album?

>KERRY, Charles. Picturesque Tumut. [cover title of a photograph album]. n.p. 1891. Oblong album 275x232mm, worn half calf rebacked, titled in gilt on the front cover; 36 albumen prints 200x150mm with small variations, on card leaves, each captioned in pencil. Spotting of the card leaves affecting a few photos. Each photo with the blindstamp of Kerry & Jones 308 George Street Sydney. Au$16,500

Kerry's jaunt from Gundagai to Cooma in early 1891 was well publicised: there was a three part well illustrated spread in the Illustrated Sydney News in March and April 1891. Kerry was at work, he been hired by an unnamed client looking to the tourist possibilities of the highlands. Some of these photos have become almost famous through reproduction. Investigation into the Chinese tobacco industry can't afford to miss Kerry's series of workers sorting, carrying, loading, in and round the drying shed at Gocup. His photos of the house and creek (they form a diptych) at Talbingo Station where Mrs Lampe gave them lunch is part of the Miles Franklin story - it's where she was born, but it seems that despite active searching she never found a copy of this photo, later photos are in her papers.
What you may never see reproduced elsewhere are his photos of Yarrangobilly Station. This is where Mr Campbell put them up for the night before heading into the Yarrangobilly Caves. Kerry went to some trouble, trudging the hills around the station and photographing it from three angles. The station was a pretty bleak looking place. It has some lonely, pioneering charm but even Kerry couldn't make it picturesque enough to be included in the illustrated newspaper spread so it is these photos that convinces me that this album is directly connected to Yarrangobilly and its owner. There exists another album of Kerry photos called 'Picturesque Tumut' but that was prepared by the people of Tumut in January 1892 for the Earl of Jersey, the new governor who visited the district and caves. You will find one view of the station in that - and how could they leave it out considering he must have been there on his way to the new caves discovered on Kerry's trip? But three views? Who else would want three views?
*Click on the picture to see more.

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[LEACOCK, James Freeland]. Present Problems of Australia's North - Some Suggestions By an Observer. [Also titled 'Australia's Problems in the North - Conclusions of a Crank' inside]. n.p. n.d. [Sydney 1963?]. Quarto stapled sheets duplicated from typescript; 8pp. Au$125

With his splendid can-do approach Leacock tackles and solves problems that range from improving the yield of dairy cows to the re-organisation of all South East Asia. He favours the name 'Maphilindo' for the Federation of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Asian settlers in north Australia was not exactly a new subject but most writers to date had dealt with labour rather than settlers who "would soon grow into good Australians".
Leacock was a can-do man. He was a dairy farmer and is celebrated in motoring circles for the invention of the ute: he patented a design to convert a car into a ute-like vehicle in 1929, five years before the first official ute.

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Chinese in Australia. Chinese Immigration ... a copy of all papers, including correspondence, legal opinions, reports ... interviews, and minutes relating to the Chinese Immigration Question ... together with copies of the reports of the proceedings of the late Conference on the same question, the decisions arrived at, and all papers and documents submitted to the Conference. Melbourne, Government Printer 1888. Foolscap, excellent in a modern plain wrapper; xvi,101pp. Au$750

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 extensive compilation of official and unofficial correspondence within Victoria and with other colonies, including letters and petitions from Chinese residents. There is some terse conversation between the government and Cheong Cheok Hong of the Chinese residents' committee.
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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Chinese Immigration. Petition. Arrest of Chinese Immigration. Laid upon the council table by the Honorable W.H.F. Mitchell ... 15th July, 1857. [with] Petition. Influx of Chinese ... 12th August 1857. [with] Report of the Select Committee ... on the subject of Chinese Immigration, together with proceedings of the committee and minutes of evidence. Melbourne, Govt Printer 1857. Three papers foolscap, disbound; the petitions one page each, the report viii,28pp. Au$750

The first petition, from the Local Court of Castlemaine, is the more verbose about the evils and dangers of the Chinese inundation but unspecific about remedies, calling only for more cogent legislation while the second, from the inhabitants of Geelong, is brief and firm, calling for a poll-tax and the outlawing, with severe penalties, of the Chinese passenger trade. The committee, chaired by Pascoe Fawkner, examined a proposed bill to regulate the Chinese population and a number of witnesses, including a couple of detectives, the Chinese Protector at Sandhurst who was either the most ignorant or most honest of the witnesses, William Young, the missionary who produced a report on the Chinese of Victoria a decade later, and local merchant Kong Meng who spoke of some atrocious behavior by Europeans on the goldfields. The act, printed at the end, is recommended with a couple of amendments and consists of a hefty poll tax and punitive licensing system.

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Harbours. A Copy of the Report of the Harbour of Refuge Commission of 1846, on the several modes of construction ... copies of the papers connected therewith. London, House of Commons 1847. Foolscap modern wrapper; 52pp, one plate and some small illustrations through the text. Docket title on the last page. Au$90

A stormy commission; one that could well have used a harbour of refuge. While this - the third commission in a few years - finally saw work begun, two of the commissioners refused to sign the report and got truly cranky when the Commission refused to record their dissent. That takes up the first few pages here and the dissent of Sir Howard Douglas several more. Then we have reports and evidence given by the giants of civil engineering - John and George Rennie, Cubitt, Alan Stevenson - followed by reports from America on the Delaware breakwater and France on Cherbourg.

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>RENNIE, Sir John. The Theory, Formation, and Construction of British and Foreign Harbours. London, Weale 1854. Two volumes large folio half morocco (scuffed & scraped but solid and handsome enough); [4],x,324pp, portrait & 122 plates (with a couple of anomalies in numbering). Browning or spotting of plates, an intermittent stain along the top edge but a good set, neglected rather than used and worn. Au$2,750

The first and probably the greatest comprehensive book on ports and harbours, the culmination of two generations of experience (Rennie draws on his own and his father's papers). 'I have endeavoured to select a series of examples from almost every country, from the earliest dawn of civilization to the present day. Each example is complete in itself, and is accompanied by a statement of the geological and geographical features .. the state of the place before any works .. the history of the various works .. the effect of them .. where they have failed, the causes of failure are explained, and, as far as circumstances will permit, the remedy best adapted to the nature of the case is pointed out' (preface). His account of the Bell Rock Light House gently rebukes Stevenson for his failure to acknowledge the elder Rennie's part in its design and building.
*Click on the picture to see some more.

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Sydney Harbour Bridge. Sydney Harbour Bridge. Souvenir. Ceremony of turning the first sod of the northern railway approach ... 28th July, 1923. Sydney, Govt Printer 1923. Quarto publisher's printed wrapper; 20pp, illustrated. An excellent copy. Au$100

At this stage the bridge was still to be Bradfield's cantilevered bridge; so as well as providing a useful potted history of various proposals and attempts to build a harbour bridge, this provides us with views of the city as planned but never built.

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>Canberra. Report Together with Minutes of Evidence and Plans Relating to the Construction of Provisional Administrative Offices at Canberra. [Melbourne], Govt Printer [1923]. Foolscap folio, stapled; vi,18pp, 2 folding plans (one with a couple of tears at the edge). Au$125

The standing committee actually voted against the buildings proposed here. They are a compound of single storey timber and iron buildings of very tropical, colonial appearance. Elephants unloading civil servants onto the verandahs would suit the elevation drawing perfectly. Asking federal public servants to work in timber and iron buildings bothered the committee who have recommended a pair of brick or concrete, permanent, two story buildings instead.

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Canberra architecture. The Australian Academy of Science Building, Canberra [cover title]. Aust Academy of Science 1959. Oblong quarto publisher's illustrated wrappers (a couple of small scrapes); [20]pp, photo illustrations and working drawings. Au$35

A most uncommon commemorative booklet for the opening of this radical space age building - designed by Roy Grounds - with a decent account of the design and construction.

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PRITCHETT, R.T. Smokiana, Historical & Ethnographical. London, 1890. Largish octavo publisher's cloth blocked in gilt and black; 102pp. Entirely lithographed from hand written text with each page of text facing a plate, most of which are colour. New endpapers, quite a good copy. Au$400

With such a charming book I had no expectations of documentary accuracy but even so I was taken aback by an Australian emu leg pipe. It is re-assuring to find that the author "in vain" sought a native pipe and offers the eccentric and somewhat gruesome example as probably being of Chinese or Malay making. The book is an ethnographic survey of smoking pipes and apparatus, including an opium outfit; the author's unbiased study led him to believe that opium was maligned and that moderate use was a health benefit to Chinese workers.
Before turning to art, travel and collecting in the 1860s Pritchett had been a gunmaker, proving yet again that smoking and violent destruction go hand in hand.

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>Opera. A collection of 23 19th century opera librettos (or libretti if you like) mostly published in Australia. v.p. 1860s to 1880s. 23 volumes 12mo together in 19th century quarter roan (a short split in the front hinge at the top). A pleasing gathering, all but two with wrappers preserved; with the later bookplate of the writer, photographer and fabulist Hardwicke Knight.
Eighteen of these are Australian, more Melbourne than Sydney; one comes from Auckland, one from San Francisco, one from New York, and two from London. A complete list can be provided. Au$1,675

A telling record of the interest in and importance of opera in the far flung colonial outposts, in the days before opera became the province of the ineluctably cultured elite. This belonged to an afficianado in Dunedin, New Zealand - the second most remote British city in the Empire - who has recorded local performance dates for several years on the covers of most of the libretto's here. It took a while to connect these to Dunedin because attempts to connect the opera companies these librettos were produced for to the performance dates led to confusion. Only after connecting to the dates to the operas themselves did Dunedin emerge. In other words once you were outside Melbourne or Sydney these librettos were a catch as catch can affair. Companies may well have carried stocks of librettos with them when touring but given that a stay in somewhere like Dunedin involved performing a different opera every night to packed theatres with queues being turned away and repeat this in town after town round the colonies and you can see the problem.
Also telling are the imprints. Melbourne was the opera capital of the western Pacific and South East Asia, corporate headquarters if you like as the companies themselves seem to spent most of their lives on tour, playing to packed houses in small cities and towns that I bet haven't seen an opera company in the last century. Only one was produced in New Zealand in this small but representative sample. The San Francisco imprint is a souvenir of Lyster's failed attempt to conquer America and the New York imprint may well have come with a company that toured from that direction.

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CROSLAND, Newton. Apparitions; An Essay, Explanatory of Old Facts and a New Theory. To which are added, sketches and adventures. London, Trubner 1873. Octavo publisher's cloth (a little rubbed and flecked); [8],166,[2]pp. Au$135

Uncommon; a crusade in the cause of Spiritualism, bellicose but not unfair according to the author: "If I have punished my adversaries, ... [I fight] with the spirit of the pugilist or fencer, and not with the feelings of an enemy". Crosland published a version of his essay in 1856 and has reworked it here, given the developments in Spiritualism - and opposition to Spiritualism - in the intervening years. Appended are three short pieces of fiction, the first, 'Hartsore Hall' is a ghost story.
Crosland's career, in literary terms, is overshadowed by that of his wife - Mrs Newton Crosland oddly enough - but his works were not unambitious; they include his 'New Principia' (1884) in which he overturns Newtonian theories of the universe. He did publish an autobiography late in life (1898) but that has so far eluded me as effectively as his 'Principia'.

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>Aviation. Ueno Tsuyako and Katherine Stinson. A commemorative fan for Japan's first woman aviator, Ueno Tsuyako, and pioneer American flier Katherine Stinson. [1917]. Folding colour printed paper fan on split bamboo, 205x305mm open. In outstanding shape. Au$165

A splendidly lurid bit of modern Japanese kitsch celebrating two women pioneers. Ueno was Japan's first woman to take to the air, enrolling in flight school in 1917 and Stinson - among the first handful of American women fliers - was the first woman in the air in Japan. She toured in late 1916 and 1917 showing her barnstorming skills. We should note that while Miss Ueno is at the wheel she is robed and coiffed as any proper young Japanese woman should be. Miss Stinson on the other hand is shown - characteristic for her - with her long hair down; provocative enough for a woman in America but surely wanton in Japan.

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de FOIGNY, Gabriel. Les Avantures de Jacques Sadeur dans la Decouverte et le Voiage de la Terre Australe. Paris, Michel David 1705. Small octavo contemporary calf. A pleasing copy. Au$2,500

This 1705 edition appeared with a multitude of imprints, I stopped counting at eight. They all seem identical but for the name at the bottom of the title page. Half of Paris must have formed a consortium to publish this. Presumably the other half of Paris bought and avidly read it; copies have been long hard to find and good copies doubly so. And who could resist the story of a hermaphrodite serial shipwreck victim carried by a giant bird to a new continent in the south?
This first appeared under the title La Terre Australe Connu and a false imprint in 1676; one of many reprehensible acts of the feckless disgrace, de Foigny, and the only one he is remembered for now.

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DICKENS, Charles. No. 1. Spiritual Communications and the Comfort They Bring: by the Disembodied Spirit of Charles Dickens, through a Melbourne Medium. Melbourne, 1st November 1873 [printed by Troedel]. Octavo publisher's printed pink wrapper; 8pp. A nice copy. Au$150

Only edition and surely one of Dickens' scarcer works. It is comparatively well represented in Australian libraries -Trove finds six locations - but OCLC and Copac find only two outside Australia: Princeton and the British Library. Dickens did write a fair bit after his death, including the inexplicably neglected completion of Edwin Drood dictated to Mr James of Vermont. The terrible tease of this is the promise that December will bring No.2. - new Christmas stories. I can't find any evidence that Dickens kept his promise.

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FRITH, Walter. The Sack of Monte Carlo. An adventure of today. Bristol, Arrowsmith; London, Simpkin Marshall 1897. Octavo publisher's maroon cloth blocked in gilt and red. Quite a nice copy. Arrowsmith's 3/6 Series, no. XXIX. Au$350

First edition. Is this the first caper novel? The modern caper novel - parent to the caper film - I mean, forget Robin Hood and suchlike. Our young English gentleman narrator tells us how he, stymied in love for the while and unhappy and restless, comes up with the idea of looting the casino at Monte Carlo and sets out to enlist some chums - first among his sister's friends for some inexplicable reason, then among his own old school friends and members of his club - and rustle up a fast steam yacht for their getaway. His sister does sign up for the job.
Gentleman, and lady, burglars were thick on the ground within a few years, they must have been elbowing each other in Mayfair salons, country house ballrooms and the gaming rooms of Monte Carlo but I can't think of an earlier book having such fun with the planning, execution and scrapes of the big score.

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De BERENGER, Lt. Col. Baron [Charles Random]. Helps and Hints How to Protect Life and Property. With instructions in rifle and pistol shooting. &c. London, for the Proprietor by Hurst 1835. 8vo publisher's green grained cloth (rebacked with the original spine preserved); viii,286,[2]pp, two folding lithograph views, eight etched plates by George or Robert Cruikshank, wood engravings through the text. A leaf torn without loss, a little browning of the lithographs, the rebacking perhaps a bit thorough but a rather good copy in a modern cloth slipcase. Au$450

How not to leave a bank; how to deal with footpads, whether on foot or in a carriage; and countless other useful tips on how to survive in London, on the highway and in the country ("eject out of a room, how to, anyone with certainty" surely works in town or country). The last 30 some pages, which includes the etchings and lithographs, is an advertisement for de Berenger's Stadium, or British National Arena which covered 24 acres of Chelsea. The Baron de Berenger, or Charles Random, who has been described variously as an inventor, sharpshooter, print colourer and stockmarket fraud, set up his Stadium in 1831 and held modern Olympics there in 1832 and 1838. He certainly had no claim to the rank of Lt. Colonel but there is some uncertainty about his claim to his title; it may have some validity.
The Cruikshank brothers seem to have had a closer relationship with Berenger than mere hired illustrators: Arthur G. Credland, in an article on Berenger in 'Arms & Armour' (2006), speculates that through their keen interest in archery and shooting that one, or both of them, taught at the Stadium - and he recounts a less than illustrious heritage for Berenger transmitted via the Cruikshanks.

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>Okamoto Ippei. 山と海 [Yama to Umi - Mountain & Sea]. Osaka, Asahi Shimbun 1926 [Taisho 15]. Quarto publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; 40pp, b/w illustrations throughout. Mild signs of use, natural browning of the paper; a pretty good copy. Au$100

A comic commentary on the Japanese out and about on holiday and I suspect many other things beyond me. There is a cast of recurring characters and it's evident from the cover that class wars are at play - there is a drawing inside of a plutocrat mugging a beggar - but there's a lot going on in these busy pages that are fun to look at but incomprehensible to me.
If you look up Okamoto Ippei in non-Japanese places now you will find so many entries telling us how unjustly neglected and forgotten he is in the history of comics and manga that we know his place is assured. Ippei was the king of newspaper cartooning as Rakuten ruled the magazines in Taisho and early Showa Japan. It was Ippei that brought the American comic strip to Japan and heads, with Rakuten, the lists of idols and inspiration of many modern manga artists; hardly forgotten.

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Paper Game. Nieuw Stoombootspel. Rotterdam, T.J. Wijnhoven Hendriksen [c1835]. Woodcut broadside (41x33cm). A horizontal fold, an outstanding copy. Au$750

Racing games like this often celebrate the new, the noteworthy, the latest craze. The steamboat might have been around for a few years but it hadn't lost its gloss judging by the games that re-appeared through the 1830s. Buijnsters and Buijnsters-Smets (Papertoys p272-3 - illustrating this copy) suggest this may be the 'Dutchman', built in 1823. This game, signed P. Emans, seems to have been printed at least four or five times through the twenties and thirties judging by the various colophons. All but one I've found are Hendriksen's; the exception is a Delft printing dated 1832 which, if this printing is from around 1835 as the experts say, indicates that the block was lent or rented.

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Paper Game. Het Stoomboot Spel. Arnhem, P.A. de Jong [183-?]. Woodcut broadside (49x41cm) with handcolouring. Folded, with some wear, a few small holes and stains; not a bad copy. Au$600

This game, signed A.H. Binger, like the similar 'Nieuw Stoombootspel', seems to have been printed a few times in the twenties and thirties, with the imprints of de Jong or Moolenijzer of Amsterdam. Small nicks in the block are the same in all printings but damage to one word that is both damaged and undamaged in the Amsterdam and Arnhem printings, and is replaced with letterpress here, indicates the block was shared between the two printers. The boat pictured, the Mercurius, ran between Amsterdam and Zaandam from 1826 to 1840.

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>Hatsutaro. Maekawa Bunzo & Sakai Junzo. 海外異聞 - 一名亞墨利加新話 [Kaigai Ibun - Ichi Mei Amerika Shinwa]. n.p. 1854 Five volumes 25x17cm, publisher's patterned wrappers with title labels; 14 double page - including a map - and 26 single page colour woodcuts. Old ownership seals; some worming which gets a little irritating, mostly in volume two (roll your mouse over the picture to see the worst), but hardly fatal; some smudges in the bottom margins; a pretty good set. Au$3,500

First edition of this classic drift or castaway account by a Japanese sailor who ended up in America. This was worked up from the account of coasting sailor Hatsutaro whose ship went astray in 1841, ending up on the other side of the Pacific. Rescued, the crew were dropped in Baja California. Hatsutaro and the Captain, Zensuke, made their way back to Japan where he was leapt upon by curious scholars who prepared this in 1844, the year he returned, but didn't publish. Drift accounts, most books relating to the outside, were unpopular with the authorities. Like many books about things western this was circulated in manuscript until the arrival of Perry and his Black Ships made any and all information about the outside world, especially America, desirable and necessary.
The first two volumes are Hatsutaro's narrative and the next three a sort of encyclopedia of America, all prepared by Maekawa and Sakai from Hatsutaro's information and whatever could be gleaned elsewhere. The artist, Morizumi Sadateru (aka Tsurana), reported that, at a loss as to how to illustrate, this he sent for Hatsutaro and they spent days molding rice into landscapes and making models.
A copy of the 1970, Dawson's, translation of this into English will be included if wanted.

*Click on the picture to see more in the gallery.

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>SAMUELS, Lieut. Edmond. An Illustrated Diary of Australian Internment Camps. By an Australian officer of the guard. Sydney, Tyrrells [1919]. Small quarto publisher's illustrated wrapper; 52pp, numerous photo illustrations. A very good copy. Au$350

The Michelin guide to Australia's concentration camps. For the privileged internee the Belle Epoque did not end with the outbreak of war and their imprisonment. Samuels reviews Holdsworthy: "dozens of small cafes ... several theatres ... picture shows ... gymnastic halls, massage chambers, hot baths ... "; Trial Bay: "the finest tennis courts I have ever seen ... surfing, fishing, boating ... a concentration camp that undoubtedly must be one of the most comfortable in the world"; and Berrima: "a charming site for a concentration camp ... the best concentration camp to be found anywhere" where the internees built "rest houses" along the river bank and marvellous boats: hydroplanes, seaplanes, gondolas, submarines, steam tugs and a zeppelin. At the end of a parade of these boats a submarine attacked a boat which was "set alight and sunk, and the occupants swam to shore."
The delights and privileges of being a prisoner of Australia, or more correctly a privileged prisoner of Australia. One captain drew £300 a month and even the drag for the carnival was unstinted: "Many were dressed in female clothes, carefully decked out ... even to wigs and expensive underwear". This may be unrelated to the "keen friendliness shown by many Australian girls who were visitors" - but maybe not.
I'm not sure whether Samuels was the scribbling pharmacist or the pharmaceuting scribbler. Following this debut book he penned some hit pop songs of the twenties, apparently had his musical produced in London by the distasteful Lord Sempill in 1935, knocked out a novel or two, some verse, and mopped it all up with his autobiography in 1972. His Sydney pharmacy, in Castlereagh Street, was touted as the haunt of visiting stars.

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ASTOR, John Jacob. A Journey in Other Worlds. A romance of the future. London, Longman 1894. Octavo publisher's blue cloth elaborately blocked in silver and lettered in gilt; 10 illustrations, nine by Dan Beard; 24 page publisher's list dated September 1894 at the end. Edges a bit rubbed and the title page a bit browned. Quite a good copy. Au$165

First English edition, pretty much concurrent with the New York edition. William Waldorf Astor has been described as the richest novelist ever and without knowing the breakdown of the family fortunes I can't argue that, but John Jacob may well be the richest science fiction writer still. William's pair of novels were no great shakes and neither is this in literary terms. But it is a scientific and utopian romance involving a voyage to Jupiter and Saturn, no worse than most of the didactic science fiction of the period and does provide enough thrills and plenty of monsters. It is set in the year 2000 and Astor's vision of world history over the intervening century can be, with equal or no profit, admired or derided.
Astor was caned by the New York Times reviewer, affronted by his view that time wasted learning the classics would be better spent learning science, who remarked that his description of a "weird scene might also serve in a description of a Dutch Christmas festival."

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Gothic novel. The Mysterious Avenger; or, the trials of love. London, published by the booksellers 1847 [printed by William Walker, Otley]. Small octavo publisher's cloth, spine blocked in gilt, sides in blind (wear to the spine ends); 256pp, wood engraved frontispiece. Splodges and smudges; well read but a decent copy of a book vulnerable to being read to death. Au$600

Only edition apparently of this rare gothic thriller seemingly unknown to Summers and found nowhere else in the collections and authorities where I expect to find it. Copac and OCLC find only the Bodleian copy. The last twenty pages contain William, The Fatal Marksman; or, the seven charmed bullets - de Quincey's translation of Apel's version of the Der Freischutz. The Mysterious Avenger could well be a reworking of some German work but I can't find what it might be.

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Slavery. [Gilbert Francklyn?]. A Very New Pamphlet Indeed! Being the Truth addressed to the people at large. Containing some strictures on the English Jacobins ... respecting the Slave Trade. London, printed in the year 1792. Octavo, disbound; 16pp. Au$495

The very model of a modern refutation, our writer has used all the methods still used to condemn reformers; in this case the abolitionists. By the second sentence the witnesses brought forward by the abolitionists have been "committed to take their trial for perjury." Before the end of the first page the abolitionists - Wilberforce, Clarkson et al - are attached to radical fanatics and Jacobins set on destroying Britain - no small charge in 1792. By page two the secret society of "Old Jewry" - a Presbyterian meeting house - has been unearthed and we learn that the testimony offered by these radicals comes from "discarded servants, starving surgeons, sailors taken drunk from the stews, or parsons convicted of adultery."
There are several points of coincidence between this and the anti-abolitionist writings of slave trader Gilbert Francklyn - and "Mr Francklyn" gets one brief mention, for being magnificently humane - but it may be that our author simply mined Francklyn for material. Certainly Francklyn's known pamphlets were never so thoroughly anonymous as this. Whoever the author, this received a snappish note in the Monthly Magazine. The Critical Review was also hostile and that hostility extended to a reply to this pamphlet, Old Truths & Established Facts which has been ascribed to Thomas Paine. This second work, Paine or not, was condemned for its lack of originality; our pamphlet for its "scarcely defensible" stratagem of joining the abolitionist with latterday levellers.

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>Catalogue - cheese boxes. Joseph Lamy Fils, Bois d'Amont, Jura. Fabrique de Boites en Bois. Specialite de Boites a Fromages. Bois d'Amont, the company [190-?]. Small octavo publisher's printed wrapper with mounted illustrations (a touch faded); [6],42pp, line illustrations throughout. A nice copy. Au$60

Wooden boxes of all shapes and sizes for quarter, half and full cheeses, from Camembert to Gruyere via Roquefort, Munster, Port-Salut ... ; followed by specialty boxes for postage, pharmaceuticals and so on. Lamy Fils may have been way over on the very edge of France but as you can see by their cover they weren't behind the times; they had telephone no.1.

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>Catalogue - safes. Pierre Haffner, Paris. Prix-Courant des Coffres-Forts Acier. Paris, the company 1911. Oblong octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper; 16pp, illustrations throughout. A nice copy. Au$90

Safe catalogues are hide to find, I think. So, to that collector in Massachusetts whose name I have lost: I finally found one. Haffner made safes for about a century and a half, from the mid 19th to the early 21st century.

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Catalogue - magic. Green Frog. Magician's Handbook ... catalogue of "Green Frog" magical conjuring stage and pocket tricks. n.p. [Sydney?] 1939. Single sheet folded to form four pages largish octavo by size, outer pages with red and green illustrations, inside printed in black. Au$35

A flyer to promote Green Frog tricks and their catalogue, a sample page inside and some hints and tips. Naturally this is better printed on better paper than the actual catalogue.

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>Catalogue - wrought iron. Guillot-Pelletier. Orleans. Constructions Metalliques. Serres. Verandas. Marquises ... balcons en fer forge. Orleans, the company [c1924]. Quarto publisher's printed wrapper; 54pp and printed section leaves, illustrated throughout; 16 page price list for January 1924 and a couple of extra sheets loosely inserted. Au$125

Grills, gates, balustrades, balconies, marquees, kiosques, greenhouses, and some funereal surrounds.

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>Paint. Thos. Parsons & Sons Ltd. London. A Tint Book Of Historical Colours. Suitable For Decorative Work. [cover title; the title page merely reads "Historical Colours"]. London 1954. Large octavo publisher's patterned cloth; 74pp, 136 mounted colour chips. Mildly used. Au$225

Fifth edition - six editions apparently appeared between 1934 and 1961 but (and you won't hear me say this when I have a first edition to sell) there isn't any difference in quality or content between them. An interesting, useful sample book of ostensibly historic colours, from the Egyptians on, matched as closely as possible by the paint manufactures. It includes oriental, Etruscan, Pompeian, Moorish, Wedgwood, Aubusson, Adam Brothers and many more types and periods.

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London Plans. Report from the Select Committee ... on Railway Schemes (Metropolis); together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, and an appendix. London, House of Commons 1864. Foolscap publisher's printed wrapper (some tears without loss); 84pp, largish folding map. Signs of use, label of Michael G. Max on the front wrapper. Au$75

The success of the first stage of the London underground brought the rash of schemes considered here, many of which the committee didn't like. Two lines which would be pneumatic - the committee didn't like the idea of central London being an experiment - and four new bridges - two of "gigantic size" - were unwanted. The map shows existing and proposed lines - the unwanted lines are coloured red.

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Sydney Harbour Bridge. Sydney Harbour Bridge Advisory Board. (Report on Designs and Tenders Submitted In Connection with the Proposed Bridge over Sydney Harbour ...). Sydney, Govt Printer 1903. Foolscap, stapled as issued; 67pp; with the portfolio of plates: 46 maps, plans, elevations, views, panoramas and photo illustrations (almost all folding, many colour and many rather large), loose as issued in the publisher's foolscap portfolio (with a new cloth spine). Rough around the edges, with spotting and browning of the outer pages of the report, some frayed edges of a few plans and a few splodges and flaws here and there but decent enough and all there. Au$1,500

An archetypal example of Australian progress, this saga dragged on for years. The competition for a bridge was first called in 1900, a winner (Arrol) and runner-up (Norman Selfe) were announced whereupon the public service discarded both and began negotiations with the cheapest bidder. After protest the competition was relaunched but this time detailed specifications and conditions were issued. With no clear winner, three companies were invited to submit further designs and in the end Norman Selfe's rather Eiffelesque cantilever bridge was favoured. At this point there was a change in government and the whole endeavour petered out in a series of increasingly bitter skirmishes on the part of Selfe and inconclusive committees and commissions on the part of the government. This report remains the most concrete record of it.
Of all the varied schemes for bridging the harbour, this report offering such a range of possible bridges most causes us to look at our sacred landmark with questioning eyes. This report is rare of course but, surprisingly, the printed report is the harder bit to find. Over the last few dozen decades, or however long I've been in this business, I've tracked down three or four sets of the plates but the only copy of the report, before this, was in Norman Selfe's own bundle of papers.

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>[BRICAIRE DE LA DIXMERIE, Nicolas]. Le Sauvage de Taiti aux Francais; Avec un Envoi au Philosophe Ami des Sauvages. London [ie Paris], chez Le Jay 1770. Octavo, bound after two other works - both lightweight bits of French froth - in contemporary marbled calf with alternating green and red labels (a bit rubbed). A pleasing copy. Au$2,850

First edition of this Tahitian incunabulum - the start of Europe's reverie - a series of letters by a Tahitian visitor to Paris. Which means of course that it is a scathing swipe at French society and politics. Paris had been given the once over by a few fictional Persians, Chinese and other exotics but now not only did they have a 'prince' from the just discovered New Eden but he was real: Aotourou, the Tahitian who accompanied Bouganville to Paris with news of paradise on earth. So how could he not pass judgment? Naturally he chose to do so anonymously and not having more than a few words of French relied on a distinguished man of letters to write them down and fill in the gaps. I must make it clear that Dixmerie uses none of the typical set dressing employed by authors of fictional authors; I'm doing that. He starts with an editor's account of Tahiti that draws from the only published account so far - that of the voyage's naturalist, Commercon, whose report had appeared in the journal Mercure de France in November 1769. Dixmerie was, by the way, a regular contributor to and editor of the Mercure. Dixmerie says that he could say much more about Tahiti but our Tahitian visitor wants his book to be read and has noticed that the French don't read big books.
Dixmerie's Tahitian stops short of fermenting revolution but he is nonetheless a radical in the manner of many pre-revolutionary troublemakers. His views of women are contradictory, or perhaps confused, but still he advocates equality at all levels. The confusion is understandable. The pre-occupation of the philosophe with the idea of perfect man and that of the rebellious troublemaker with an ideal society not only intersected, they now had the address: Tahiti. The sales rep was in town. Those who met Aotourou, Dixmerie presumably among them, quickly realised he was no Arcadian but for the rest of France, Europe, here was ideal man, that is: a man surrounded by amenable young women, nothing much else to do and plenty to eat. In other words the aristocracy. A fair minded egalitarian - a rarer breed than you might think - sees the obligation of including women in this equality business but it's hard when you risk losing that bounty of temporary maidens.

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LAWSON, Captain J.A. Wanderings in New Guinea. London, Chapman & Hall 1875. Octavo very good in a commercial red cloth prize binding decorated in gilt and black; tinted litho frontispiece and a folding map.
A bright copy, interesting as an example of the school prize industry. This has a large colourful prize plate - dated 1883 - inside the front cover printed by the London Scholastic Co. who may well have been one of the companies that made their business buying up unsold sheets of books and preparing them for prizes. In this case the binding is attractive enough, if anodyne, and the edges, untrimmed when originally issued by the publishers, have been trimmed and gilded all round. Au$300

Only edition. Like many of the best travel books, completely - from this distance ridiculously - imaginary, it sparked a fair few tight-lipped letters to the editor from both sides of the fact-fiction divide. Even Moresby, in the appendix to his book, printed a long and detailed letter to the Athenaeum refuting many claims made by Lawson. Given the furor it is surprising that not only did the book never reach a second edition but sheets were sold off as remainders. This may say something about embarrassment at Chapman and Hall.
The authorship of this has occupied generations of bibliographers; it has been ascribed to Lieut. Robert Henry Armit - plausible until we consider the other books associated with Lawson - and Ingleton advanced the cause of Lieut. Dawson who accompanied Moresby to New Guinea and wrote this as an act of revenge, though how or why it's vengeful is not clear. Captain Lawson was the author of at least one more book - The Wandering Naturalists (1880) - where he also claimed authorship of Travel and Sport in Burmah which seems to be the book that appeared as written by John Bradley in 1876. The Library of Congress links the two authors, confidently gives Lawson the christian name John and suggests that Bradley is the pseudonym. Carrying on we find that Travel and Sport in Burmah has been attributed to James Anthony Lawson by Cushing and to Captain John A. Lawson by Kirk. Here is where I'm ready to give up.

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FERNE, John. The Blazon Of Gentrie: Devided into two parts. The first named The Glorie of Generositie. The second, Lacyes Nobilitie ... discourses of Armes and of Gentry. Wherein is treated of the beginning, parts and degrees of gentlenesse, with her lawes: of the bearing, and blazon of cote-armors: of the lawes of armes, and of combats. London, printed by John Windet for Andrew Maunsell 1586. Small quarto contemporary calf ruled in blind with a device stamped into each board (rebacked, corners worn); [20],341,[3],130pp, woodcuts through the text. Contemporary signature of John Leche on the title, probably one of the seven thousand John Leches of Carden who passed the name father to son since just after the big bang. Ours may be John Leche X of Carden Hall. A few gentlemanly annotations in Latin in the margins and inside the back cover. Someone pencilled "a tall copy" on the front endpaper and indeed there is close to a half inch spare above the headlines. Au$1,750

First edition of this stanchion of English ideas of class, lineage and heredity and the innate nobility of the Gentleman. Indeed the argument is put forward that Jesus had the right to a coat of arms through his mother and that many of the apostles were "Gentlemen of bloud" (p97-8).

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ANSTEY, F. [ie Thomas Anstey Guthrie]. A Bayard From Bengal. Being some account of the magnificent and spanking career of Chunder Bindabun Bhosh, Esq. B.A., Cambridge, by Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., Calcutta University, ... London, Methuen 1902. Octavo publisher's cloth with mounted illustration; eight plates by Bernard Partridge, 40pp publisher's list dated August 1902. A touch of browning and minor signs of use, a rather good copy. Au$150

First edition of this spanking example of comedy that can no longer be funny; a slur from the caption on the frontispiece to the very last word. Anstey specialised in fish out of water - or stranger in a strange land - situation comedy, often fantastic, and I get him mixed up with his imitator with a parallel pseudonym, R. Andom who specialised in identity exchange. Here we follow the adventures of our Indian hero in Oxford and highish society as portrayed by a fellow Anglophile and drawn by a last minute stand in for the desired Royal Academician, whose ignorance of things British needs constant correction. All this sparked a letter to the Spectator from an Andra Singha in September 1902 complaining that Anstey's mockery of Indian writings in English was too easy a target, tired and misguided. Anstey's mockery of Indians themselves went unnoticed.

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