LAURENCE, Z. Perspective Simplified; second edition, containing a new "preliminary chapter," ... with an additional plate. London, Weale 1839. Octavo publisher's cloth (faded and splodged with some wear to the very tips but firm); xx,47pp, folding frontispiece and nine plates. Seven are folding and two are moveable models that can be popped up and include thread and even a transparent panel of gauze. A bit of browning but a rather good copy of a book fated to be wrecked by enthusiastic handling. Au$325

The Spectator review for the first edition - 1838 - starts as an accolade but, being The Spectator, by the end you wonder why Laurence and the publisher wasted their efforts and paper.
Worldcat and Copac find three or four copies of the 1838 first edition and one copy of this.

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Paper toy. 興亜進軍絵図入 [Koa Shingun Ezu Iri]. February 1943 (Showa 18). Colour printed letter form (24x45cm) with the form on one side and the colour map and details on the other. With, separately, a row of nine miniature flags strung together, two flag poles and two loose destroyers. The flag cord has come adrift from the poles but all is complete and in good shape. Au$350

An irresistible gimmick for soldiers to send home surely. Those old enough to remember aerogrammes and similar letter forms will know how this works. The letter is written on the lined side and it all folds and seals into a post paid letter. What's special here is the map showing the advances made by the Japanese up to February 1943 - and their allies - with bombs and sinking ships dotting the Asia-Pacific. The flags, including Japan, Germany, Italy, Vichy France and Manchuoko, when attached to the poles and the poles to the letter, can flutter across half the world and the ships roam the seas.
The National Library illustrates their copy, dated May but apparently identical in content. That's the only other recorded copy I can find.
Across the letter side is lightly printed 撃ちてし止まむ - uchiteshi yaman - which is translated differently in every reference I find, including 'fight without quarter', 'shoot and never stop shooting', 'smite and be done'. Taken from a Sato poem, it became a national slogan and a film.

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de CHABRILLAN, Celeste. Les Voleurs d'Or. Paris, Levy 1857. Octavo contemporary cloth backed mottled boards. Expected browning and spotting, a pretty good copy. Au$1750

First edition, and rare, of this pioneer thriller of the Australian gold fields by the former prostitute, dancer and toast of Paris, now wife of the French Consul in Melbourne. Like who knows how many women writers of the 19th century, Celeste took to novels and plays, starting with this, to climb out of a poverty pit dug by a malevolent or feckless husband. In her case, her blacksheep noble husband - the Comte de Chabrillan - was feckless, even careless enough to die in in Melbourne in 1858.

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和漢年歷箋 [Wakan Nenrekisen]. Tokyo (& Kyoto?) Senshobo 1869 (Meiji 2). 16x6cm publisher's wrapper with title label (cover marked); accordian, unfolding to some 2.9 metres (near 10 feet) long, printed on both sides. A nice copy. Au$125

Just the sort of thing an illiterate bookseller shouldn't buy, but it is just an attractive little thing. Who could resist it? This is a new, apparently revised and recut, edition of the Wakan Nenrekisen, a sort of almanac cum calendar cum chronology cum history that appeared at intervals several times during the 19th century. It includes, a couple of maps, diagrams of the planets, phases of the moon, star charts, and astrological charts. And whatever else.

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McInnis, R.A. Plan of General Development for the City of Mackay. Printed by Smith & Paterson, Brisbane 1934. Small quarto publisher's stiffened printed wrapper; [7],117pp, plans & diagrams through the text; a large (70x94cm) colour plan and a mosaic photographic aerial view (44x58cm) fold into an envelope mounted inside the back cover. A few short tears to the yapp edges of the wrapper and tears to the envelope. An excellent, fresh copy. Au$400

There may be a more rare Australian city planning scheme but I haven't met it yet. Obscure as this may be to all but the most diligent students it is or should be a landmark. This was just about the first city plan that actually made it into the statute books with the 1934 "City of Mackay ... Act." It was a long time before such a thing would happen again.

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Real estate subdivision - Coogee - Maroubra. Colonna Point Estate - Coogee close to Maroubra - Saturday 24th September 1910 ... Richardson & Wrench Ltd ... Sydney, Richardson & Wrench 1910. Colour lithograph 76x56cm; folded, some small holes and short tears around the edges. Au$150

Curious that Maroubra was a better selling point than Coogee. More Colonna Point land was advertised soon after WWI but Colonna Point Estate, presumably related to the late resident Richard Colonna-Close, didn't stick as a name; seems 'Colonna Point' disappeared as soon as the land was sold.

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Iseki Takaharu. Original artwork for Imai Q-Land models. n.p. [1960s]. Two works, each 32x50cm, gouache and or acrylic on paper. Au$1500

Here is the future we were promised mid-century. And you wonder why old men are grumpy. Imai Kagaku were toy and model kit makers and the Q-Land series was a moon base. There was a companion undersea series. Here we have the finished artwork for the boxes Q-Land came in - I found pictures of the boxes online and stole them to show you the finished product.
Iseki was the go-to-man for futuristic toys and models, sleek cars, planes and suchlike, working for several companies.

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Art Training Institute Pty Ltd. The New Era in Commercial Art. Melbourne, the company [193-?]. Folio (35x25cm) publisher's string tied printed wrapper; 52pp illustrated throughout, much in colour, and 13 translucent leaves, several printed. A rather good copy. Au$185

The fairly deluxe prospectus for the commercial art school. Throughout are examples of the work - posters, advertisements etc - of successful students, the staff, and distinguished contributors, including James Northfield, Ted Scoresby and Ida Outhwaite.
There are a few versions of this book with slightly different titles and contents. This one does not match any of the three noted by Trove. Neither does it quite match a copy that came through here a few years ago with some correspondence dated 1937.

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Catalogue - printing types. John Haddon & Co. London. Haddon's Types & Borders. Pony Book No.1 January 1904. Australasian Edition No.1. London, Haddon 1904. 22x13cm publisher's printed limp cloth (rubbed and used but solid); 306 leaves printed on one side: samples of types, borders and decorations, some in two colours. At the end are a few pages of equipment and machinery. A few pages at each end have a crease across a corner and are rather thumbed. An acceptable, solid copy of a book made to be used to death. It opens vertically. Au$685

Pony Book No.1 has all the types ready and Pony Book No.2 is promised next New Year. I can't find any record that it ever appeared and I can't find many copies of a No.1. Now that the St Bride Library is a reception centre we don't know what they have. A Canadian edition exists in one traceable copy, a couple of generic No.1s can be found and no other copy of an Australasian edition.

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Japanese textiles. Sample book of textiles titled Tozakire Honcho [album of textiles we have handled - more or less] and dated March Taisho 4 [1915]. n.p. 1915 360x225mm card cover titled in ink; some 311 samples on 116 leaves followed by a large number of blanks. Au$1850

A working Kyoto draper or textile merchant's sample album of large swatches of luxurious fabrics which I'm told include Kinran (gold brocade), Kando (woven stripes or checks) and Donsu (damask silk). These are presumably Nishijin textiles. There isn't an owner's name though there is a small red stamp inside the covers which looks like an 'm' inside an oval and part of some inscription. It's possible this came from the venerable Kyoto textile house of Daimaru - forerunner of the current department store empire - a number of sample and pattern albums from Daimaru emerged in Kyoto in recent years; I'm not sure it matters.
This is serious fabric. I find it interesting that while there is no shortage of tasteful bling - silver and gold - the bright, lurid, colours that came into fashion at the end of Meiji and rampaged through Taisho are significantly absent. These are for the most part pre-aniline colours. The designs, to me, range from insipid to spectacular but even my dull and ignorant eyes can see that no workman's wife wore this stuff round the house.

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BURGOYNE, Geo. Aug. The Wool Marks Directory of Australia ... an alphabetical classification of wool marks, with the name of owner, station, postal address, and pastoral district in Australia and Tasmania. Sydney, Burgoyne (slip pasted over the original John Sands imprint) [1889?]. Quarto publisher's morocco (scuffed and worn, front cover near detached); ii,248pp. Certainly used but rightly so and most acceptable. With the stamp of Melbourne wool buyers Hick, Kettlewell & Co. Au$875

This compilation clearly took murderously assiduous patience and care and the result is a prosaic working book that would have attracted few rave reviews. But it is in its way a catalogue of the wealth of the country, identifying as it does near everything that came off the sheep's back, where it came from and who grew it, in all colonies. And presumably essential for buyers of Australian wool. At the end are marks Burgoyne could not trace to a property and he warns that some of these may be suspect: "dealers' mixed lots, speculative lots, and scoured lots of unknown origin."
Hicks Kettlewell & Co was one of a few incarnations of the firm that started as W. & B. Hicks around 1850.
Trove finds copies of this at the National Library and the Mitchell and Worldcat adds the University of California.

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Catalogue - Scientific Apparatus. Townson & Mercer, London. Catalogue of Chemical & Scientific Apparatus, Balances, Graduated Instruments, Pure Chemicals, &c. The company, March 1901. Octavo publisher's cloth (neatly rebacked with the slightly chomped but essentially complete original spine retained); xxxii,720,xliipp, hundreds of wood engraved illustrations. A bit spotted but very decent. Au$175

Eighth edition, with every necessity for every kind of laboratory (not to mention some rather good models in the mechanics section). The last section is Towson & Mercer's stock of laboratory equipment made by Fletcher, Russell & Co.

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Catalogue - furniture. Charles Meeking & Co., London. Charles Meeking & Co's Illustrated and Priced Catalogue of Furniture, Bedding, Carpets, etc. London, the company 1858. Small quarto publisher's green cloth titled in gilt on the front and blocked in blind (a bit faded and marked); iv,116pp, illustrated throughout in line. Mild signs of use, a rather good copy. With the blindstamp of W. Westcott, pioneer bookseller of Hobart Town. Au$1000

A rare and good catalogue (and what could be better?) of respectable early to mid-Victorian furniture for every room. By 1858 Meeking & Co were at least two decades established as drapers but the expansion into furniture seems more recent. The preface suggests this is their first catalogue. Worldcat and other likely catalogues find one copy of an 1865 catalogue only.
The only recent mention of Meeking furniture I found regards a piece with a Meeking label which also turned up in Australia.

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Sugoroku. Shimizu Taigakubo. 家庭漫畫雙六 [Katei Manga Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Fujinkai 1919 (Taisho 8). Colour broadsheet 79x56cm. A knocked about copy with repairs to several tears and separating folds. Au$300

Knocked about but too fabulous and too rare to discard. This comic view of modern family life was the new year gift from the Woman's World magazine. There are perhaps a few female cliches but don't forget this was a time and place when mockery was more playful teasing than misogyny and abuse. For the woman it didn't mean that a man didn't want to sleep with you once he was drunk.

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[ERSKINE, Thomas]. Armata. A fragment. [with] The Second Part of Armata. London, John Murray 1817. Two volumes octavo, together in contemporary diced calf (title label chipped). First couple of pages at each end lightly browned or spotted; a handsome, fresh copy. Inscription of liberal politican Daniel Gaskell and bookplate of heir Gerald Milnes Gaskell. sold

Third edition of the first part, first edition of the second. This now obscure Antarctic imaginary voyage to another world connected to ours at the south pole really was popular, in a mild and genteel way; there were five, likely small, editions of the first part in 1817 and the second part likewise reached five editions by 1819. It is possible they were manufactured as part of Erskine's joke in the preface of part two that histories such as this were doomed to obscurity whereas if he called it a romance it was guaranteed two editions at least by the lending libraries alone. Certainly all five editions seem equally uncommon.
Erskine's Armata is dystopian in intent but he is too polite and good natured to go overboard about it and although a couple of hundred or so sailors, from earth and from Armata, are obliterated at each end of the book they are dispatched in a sentence each. Even the narrator's beloved Morvina, who is literally killed by her induction into society, is done to death in a quiet half page, the narrator apologetic for being tactless enough to mention it. But, skimming past the legal religious stuff - I couldn't follow the outrageous fraud the clergy put over the government and justice system - there are some delightful scenes of bone crunching mayhem once Armata society sets off for an evening out.
Erskine, also now obscure, was once described as the "greatest advocate as well as the first forensic orator who ever appeared in any age" (James High as quoted in Patterson's 'Nobody's Perfect'). He remained all his life a fierce defender of freedom of speech and the liberty of the press with one startling lapse: after defending Thomas Paine at the cost of his own position he prosecuted a bookseller for distributing Paine's writing. Apparently he later returned the retainer in remorse but he remained open to accusations of self interest in that case.

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MORETTE, Edgar. The Sturgis Wager. A detective story. NY, Stokes [1899]. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in red and black. Minor signs of use, a pretty good copy. Au$150

First edition of this fast paced New York murder mystery that opens in the chaos of Broadway traffic. Well before the end of chapter one we have our corpse and three mysteries. Another chapter, more mystery and the bet that gentleman reporter Sturgis can't solve them. Soon enough we enter the realm of scientific fantasy with the criminal genius who has disposed of hundreds of victims and dissolved their remains in his laboratory.

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Hikifuda Menu. 萬菜便覧 [Banzai Binran]. n.p. [190-?]. Colour lithograph broadside 37x51cm. Minimal signs of use. Au$90

This cheerful Hikifuda - handbill - is an advertisement and a menu. I'm told what's on offer is side dishes. A typical Hikifuda in that businesses had their own details put in the centre panel. I've traced two images of this handbill, one with a blank centre panel, the other for a different company.

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ROBINSON, W. Heath. Philips Glowlamp Works Ltd. The Wireless Adventures of Mr Pimple. n.p. [1924]. Largish octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper (some marks and a couple of short tears); 8 leaves printed on one side; illustrated by Heath Robinson. Stamp of the Port Kembla Garage Engineering Co on the front and Noyes Bros of Sydney inside. Au$125

A rare and typically delightful Heath Robinson concoction in which Mr Pimple undertakes the monumental engineering task of building a radio, fruitlessly until a wise and true friend puts him onto Philips Receiving Valves. Worldcat finds two copies, both in Australia.

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GROPIUS, Walter. The New Architecture and the Bauhaus. London, Faber 1935. Octavo, very good in publisher's cloth and somewhat used but decent dustwrapper with a largish chip from the top of the spine; 112pp, 16 photo plates. Au$250

First edition and hard to find with dustwrapper. Does this Moholy-Nagy wrapper design strike anyone else as grim, if not threatening? Something like a weapon caught in a police spotlight. Or is it just me?

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Tram Game. Tramway Spel. Amsterdam, J. Viegler [c1880]. 435x575mm colour litho game on paper. A rather good copy. Au$200

A Dutch racing game presumably co-produced with the cocoa maker van Houten. Amsterdam's trams began running in 1875 and you can be sure the game makers were at work within minutes. There is a version of this without the advertisements on the trams - which are obvious additions when you compare them - published by Ellerman Harms; doubtless Viegler got the rights and made a deal with van Houten. It wasn't long before writers were complaining about the disfiguring surfeit of advertising on trams all round the world.

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JONES, Ernest. Treatment of the Neuroses. London, Bailliere, Tindall & Cox 1920. Octavo publisher's cloth; 232pp. Quite a good copy. Au$50

First edition. Freud may have invented neurosis but Jones played no small part in making it popular throughout the English speaking world.

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Iwaya Sazanami & Yamanaka Kodo. ジョンとポチ [Jon to Pochi]. Tokyo, Hakubunken 1909 (Meiji 42). Colour broadside, 39x55cm. Folded; used, smudges and some rumpling and creasing; a closed tear repaired. Au$150

The new year gift from the infants' magazine Yonen Gaho: the simplest cute sight gags by distinguished writer Iwaya and artist Yamanaka, a pupil of the master of gore Yoshitoshi. The boy's adventures with his dog see him in bandages while the girl's dog is the casualty.

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Catalogue - Architectural metal. G.E. Crane & Co. Sydney. The Crane Art Metal Manufactures General Catalogue No.22. Sydney, Crane & Co. [c1910?]. Large oblong quarto publisher's decorated wrappers, 25x31cm; 76pp, profusely illustrated with photos and some measured profiles, one colour illustration. A scruffy copy, rumpled with closed tears in three or four leaves but decent and complete. sold

A pretty good catalogue and hard to date precisely. It is very art nouveau, which in Sydney can mean 1925. But Crane's were up to date - they had telephone number 4 in 1898 - and I suspect that this dates from around 1910 (their phone numbers here are 4614, ..15, ..16, ..17 and their Pitt Street address has been renumbered).
An enormous range of decorated metal ceilings, borders, wall sheets and panels, cornices, centre flowers, concoles and trusses, finials and crestings, turrets, mansards, a spire, cupola and dome, advertising signs and letters, and sundries.
Trove finds two copies of catalogue 22 and one copy of an abridged catalogue. I've had a copy of 22A which looks much like this but where are all the others?

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Catalogue - chocolates. Chocolat Weiss, St. Etienne. Chocolats Weiss. St. Etienne [c1930?]. Octavo publisher's colour illustrated wrapper, string tied; 24pp, double page colour centrefold, numerous b/w ills. Frontispiece, preface and small illustrations by Sem. A nice copy. Au$185

Weiss still produce and sell chocolate in St Etienne and they look pretty smart but nowhere near as chic as what is offered in this catalogue.

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Catalogue - clothing. E. Rosenburger, New York City. A Dark Secret is Let Out By [cover title; inside:] The Clothing Specialists of America. E. Rosenburger & Co. NY, the company [c1890]. Large octavo (26x18cm) publisher's illustrated wrapper; [16]pp, illustrated by wood engravings throughout. A vertical fold, a rumpled but very decent copy. Au$350

A splendid example of the value that even the most casual racism adds to any advertising. Who could resist opening this to find out what could so shock this mammy? What is it about images like this that made them so successful? It can't just be that they were funny, nor that they comforted one race nursing a fear of another. And what makes them so magnetic now. It can't just be that they shock us? And what is the dark secret? I've been right through this and I'm still not convinced there isn't some secret beyond Rosenburger's cheap suits for men and boys.
I can't find this or any Rosenburger catalogue in Romaine, McKinstry or anywhere else I can think of looking.

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Catalogue - radios. AWA Radiola Broadcast Receivers. [Sydney? 193-?]. Octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper; 16pp, two-tone illustrations. Stamp of Sydney retailer Mick Simmons on the cover; inoffensive vertical fold. Au$85

The AWA range of Australian designed and made console and table radios, mains and battery powered. I don't think standing cabinet radios were ever stylish: mock Jacobean was the default. Beautiful, vivid and high moderne small radios were made but not in Australia by AWA.

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Exhibition - automobiles. A.P.M.A. Exhibition Sydney Town Hall 10th to 14th November, 1953 ... Sydney, Automotive Products Manufacturers Association of Australia 1953. Octavo stapled as issued; 64pp, illustrated adverts, some in colour. Au$60

A substantial enough guide to the exhibition, two quires well printed on good paper and then stapled through the sides a la military handbook or parts catalogue.

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Catalogue - steel furniture. D.F. Cowan. Melbourne. Steel Furniture by D.F. Cowan. South Melbourne [c1938?]. Octavo publisher's printed wrapper; 16pp, illustrated throughout. Au$200

Cowan was an early Australian entrant into tubular steel furniture. Nothing fiercely original but I'd guess they are better made than the current crop of reproduction modernity. Some commercial stuff is included: seating for shops, buses, lecture theatres and so on. Searches of the usual places find no Cowan catalogues.

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Catalogue - radios. British General Electric, Sydney &c. Genalex Radio. [Sydney 193-?]. Octavo publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; 16pp including cover; illustrated throughout. Au$75

Console and table radios, a car radio, gramophone and a cool Home Broadcaster microphone that can be connected to the radio. Genalex designers tried to acknowledge that the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries had passed but got snagged on Sheraton along the way.

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JOHNSTON, E.M. A fairy picture. n.p. n.d. [1920's?]. Ink and white paint on paper 19x15cm. In an elderly, possibly original, mount and glazed frame. Overall size 32x24cm. Au$125

A charming enough, certainly competent fairy picture a la Ida Outhwaite, Margaret Clark etc, well finished and nicely signed, presumably for publication: the face has been touched up with white. This surfaced in northern Tasmania, which may or may not be a help in pinning down who E.M. Johnston was.

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Advertising. A shop banner for Crispo Potato Crisps. The Noisiest Crisp in the World. With an unused Crispo packet. n.p. [Tingha, NSW 1950's?]. Colour poster 16x46cm, packet 21x14cm. Both excellent. Au$150

Crispo crisps - not to be confused with any other Crispos elsewhere in the world, none of them as noisy - were made in Tingha by North West Delicacies maybe through to the mid-late sixties. Packets exist with the price changed by hand to decimal but that may be the work of a most thrifty shopkeeper.

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NISBET, Hume. The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom; a yarn of the Papuan Gulf. London, Ward & Downey 1888. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in colour and gilt (tips worn, cloth a bit dull and discoloured); 23 full page ills by Nisbet. A second hand but quite acceptable copy. Au$185

First edition (only? there was an 1889 colonial issue and a 'new edition' in 1896 but I suspect these are re-issues of the same sheets) of Nisbet's first novel (of some 40) and one of the earliest novels of New Guinea from first hand experience. Nisbet insists on his accuracy of detail and was often criticised for proselytising at the expense of humour and excitement but his ideas have come into their own: "this is not a missionary tale, but the words of one who believes as ... Ruskin believes, that what the savage gains from religion and civilisation is not equivalent to his own beliefs when left alone." Despite dire warnings that a trip to New Guinea was near suicide, and unlike most of his contemporaries and followers, New Guinea to Nisbet was not a dark, savage and desperate land and his bright and cheery sobriquet of a title shows a generous response and appreciative humanity but lousy marketing skills.

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Ned Nimble Amongst the Bushrangers of Australia. London, Edwin J. Brett [188-?]. Two volumes large octavo, bound together in a modern wrapper with a copy of a cover mounted; original illustrated wrappers bound in. 276pp, 23 full page illustrations. Some repairs and splodges to the wrappers; natural browning of the paper in the first volume; still, rather good. Au$1250

Ned Nimble's Australian romp appeared in the 'Boys of England' in 1882 and in parts and collected editions in two versions.This is the first, coming out of the Boys of England offices. The other comes out of Harkaway House, a name change made in the early nineties. The second version came in, I think, 17 weekly parts adding up to 264 pages.
The wrappers are sensibly recycled with part numbers and price at the top (parts 28 and 30, price 4d) and volume numbers and new price stamped at the bottom (Nimble Series Vol 9 and 10; price one shilling). And the volumes are recycled from unsold parts with the original stab marks visible. I don't get how they could have spun this out to 30 parts, there are clearly 23.
Trove finds two copies of the second version and one of this. But the covers of that one have different Nimble series volume numbers. Confused? Bored?

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Sir George Grey. Policeman X. The Great Medicine Man of Dancoyle. By Policeman X. Auckland, Wilson & Horton printers 1879. Octavo publisher's printed wrapper; 4pp. A short tear in the top margin. Au$150

A short but closely packed attack on Sir Gerge Grey, dating from somewhere around the end of his spell as Premier (1877 to October 1879). This is the tale of Dr Gammon and his "celebrated 'Grey Powders' which were simply a mystic compound of manhood suffrage and triennial parliaments, flavoured with a strong dash of communism".

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HOPKINS, Francis R.C. Souvenir of the Dramatic Works. Printed for private circulation only. Sydney 1910. Large octavo publisher's red morocco (edges rubbed); [7],32pp, photo illustrations & facsimile playbills on various coloured papers. Some unnecessary annotations on the last couple of pages by an intermediate owner. Au$150

Inscribed by Hopkins to A.B. Triggs. The synopsis and playbills for William Dampier's productions of Hopkins' plays from 'Good For Evil' (1876) to his yellow peril romp, 'Reaping the Whirlwind' - published in 1909 but despite the mock playbill here, never produced.

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Death. Naosuke Gonda. 葬儀式附圖 [Sogishiki Fuzu]. Tokyo, Furukawa Yutakaho 1887(?). 225x150mm original wrapper with title label; 38 double folded leaves (ie 76pp) with numerous woodblock illustrations. An excellent copy. Au$225

A well illustrated guide to Shinto funeral ceremonies and burial. A rare book; a moderately thorough search finds only the NDL entry.

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PLANAS, D. Eusebio. Historia de Una Mujer. Barcelona, Fugarull 1880. Folio contemporary quarter calf; [2]pp and 50 chromolitho plates including an illustrated title. Printed title browned, spots here and there, a rather good copy. Au$1050

A captivating moral tale in picture and scant words with - as is traditional in the best moral tales - all the attention lavished on the rise and triumph, the excesses and debauchery, of our beautiful heroine. Only a couple of plates show repentance and retribution - the last shows the wasted, destroyed beauty gazing plaintively and helplessly at the somewhat zombie-like nun who must be watching the approach of the angel of abject death.
Among the work's many delights is the portrait gallery of what would now be called creepy old perves, those older gentlemen that once could freely cluster around young beauties like vultures round a ripe zebra.
Planas was a busy illustrator - trained as a lithographer in Paris, and the quality of these need no apology - whose best work centres around the games of the night and the pleasures of the flesh. Apparently this work was conceived as a series of cigarette cards before appearing in this much more satisfying format.

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BEST, Elsdon. The Maori Canoe. An acount of various types of vessels used by the Maori of New Zealand in former times, with some description of those of the isles of the Pacific ... Wellington, Govt Printer 1925. Quarto contemporary cloth (lightly flecked) with the original printed wrapper mounted on the front board; vi,312pp, map, some 170 photo illustrations, line drawings and diagrams. Dominion Museum Bulletin No.7. Au$200

The definitive work, it isn't superceded by Haddon's 'Canoes of Oceania' but forms a good companion. Best covers everything from tree felling to decoration and investigates the history of Polynesian migration.

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