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>Murakami Yasokichi. 入墨の履歴 [Irezumi no rireki - Why I Got My Tattoo (more or less)]. Privately printed 1929. Octavo (187x127mm) publisher's printed wrapper; 12pp and three photo plates and tipped in colour woodcut. Mounted on the front cover is a slip with the characters for 'Murakami' and his seal. Au$950
A rare tattoo autobiography; there are no common old books on tattooing but I doubt there are many scarcer than this. Murakami Yasokichi (1857 - 1933) who by the time he wrote this had become president of the Edo Choyukai - the tattooist association - was first tattooed in Taiwan in a ploy to save his life when he had been taken prisoner. The serious tattooing began as a way of hiding that Taiwan marking. The colour woodcut here is Murakami following orders during the Sino-Japanese war of 1894. If you want to know what happened to Murakami afterwards you can find photos of his skin pinned onto a wall in the Tokyo University.
I can't find a record of this in any library.
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WAINEWRIGHT, Jer. [Jeremiah]. A Mechanical Account of the Non-Naturals: Being a brief explication of the changes made in humane bodies, by Air, Diet, &c. Together with an enquiry into the nature and use of baths ... the fifth edition, revis'd. To which is added, An Anatomical Treatise of the Liver, with the diseases incident to it. London, for John Clarke 1737. Octavo contemporary calf (rebacked and corners repaired); 224;64pp. A little browning but quite a good copy. The Treatise of the Liver is separately paginated. Au$350
First published in 1707; this seems to be the last edition. The Treatise of the Liver was published in 1722 and the two works appear together only in this edition. This second part is a different setting to the first and starts at B1 (B1-E8). I would have confidently claimed this to be the original 1722 sheets except that it doesn't collate with that printing.
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>Trade Marks. Classified Representation of Trade Marks. 26th Sept. 1907 to 31st Dec 1909. [label title]. n.p. 1907-1909. Very thick foolscap folio reversed calf (outer front hinge split but binding perfectly solid); some 800 leaves - printed, typescript and manuscript - each with a trade mark ranging from a single word or logo to complete labels and packages. Au$1,950
A fairly wondrous compendium of Australian advertising, marketing and packaging from the first years of Commonwealth registration. The 1905 Trade Marks Act came into action on 2nd July 1906, superseding the varied laws of each colony, so we're pretty close to the beginning with this volume. We're also blessed by painstaking bookkeeping with entries updated for decades - through to the sixties when, I would guess, volumes such as this, were declared obsolete. This one seems devoted to foodstuffs.
*Click on the picture to see more in the gallery.
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Japan - gymnastics. 体操教範 [Taiso Kyohan - Manual of Gymnastics]. Ministry of War, Meiji 17 (1884) 150x110mm in what appear to be original cloth backed boards (spine a touch nibbled); 37 double folded leaves (ie 74pp) and 73 full page illustrations (5 folding) numbered to 32 with several bis. A little worming, nothing notable, and a couple of small stains; a quite good fresh copy. Possibly lithographed throughout. Au$300
The Japanese first got in French experts on military physical training in the late 1860s and the first Japanese book I've been able to trace was a translation of part of an 1847 manual the French visitors brought with them. That is I've traced mention of it, not the book itself. This manual also has the look of coming from a French manual but, being light on in French gymnastic manuals of the mid nineteenth century here, I don't know which one. Certainly it models the fine mustachios that became de rigueur for dashing Japanese officers. The Taiso Kyohan apparently also became the model for gymnastics in secondary schools as the idea of physical education was introduced into Japan. There were many editions of the Taiso Kyohan, presumably updated and changed as the decades went on but I'm unable to trace any copy this early in a library catalogue.
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BURN, Robert Scott. The New Guide to Masonry, Bricklaying and Plastering. Theoretical and practical. Glasgow &c, M'Gready [187-?]. Quarto publisher's half morocco (scuffed); extra illustrated title, xii,440pp, 160 plates. An uncommonly decent copy. Au$300
The standard mid-Victorian text, up to date and solid like all of Burn's books.
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GRIFFITH, George. Gambles With Destiny. London, F.V. White 1899. Octavo publisher's cloth (tips a little worn). Endpapers spotted, a pretty good copy with Ronald E. Graham's Virgil Finlay bookplate. Au$185
First edition of this collection of shorter things, mostly sci-fi or fantasy - one of which introduces the countdown: 10, 9, 8 ... ; another involves a Faustian bargain made with "haschisch".
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GRIFFITH, George. The Gold-Finder. London F.V. White 1898. Octavo publisher's illustrated green cloth (a bit used, spine wrinkled); frontispiece. An ok copy. Au$75
First edition of this thriller involving the Gold Magnet, high speed yachts, merciless modern piracy and tangled family secrets.
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GRIFFITH, George. The White Witch of Mayfair. London, F.V. White 1902. Octavo publisher's illustrated red cloth blocked in black (some spodges and marks). Foxing, generally used; a second hand copy. Au$50
First edition of this uncommon thriller fantasy.
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OWEN, Eric R. Doctor Zollinoff's Revenge. A mystery and detective novel. London, Modern Publishing [193-?]. Octavo publisher's boards and frayed and chipped but very decent dustwrapper. Natural browning of the paper, a rather good copy. Endpaper advertisements for quack remedies and fortune tellers. Au$145
Only edition presumably of this scarce bit of occult ridden detective trash. Scotland Yard's best could make no headway with the case as they were mesmerised.
Owen was in the film business - the utilitarian section: news reels and so on - from about 1918. It's likely that he was director of photography for the classic 1960 documentary of Blackpool: 'Playground Spectacular'. He is reputed to have written a few novels but this is the only one that has been identified. OCLC and Copac find two copies, one in England and one in the US.
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HUME, Fergus. A Creature of the Night. An Italian enigma. London, Sampson Low 1891. Octavo later cloth, original illustrated front wrapper bound in (this quite rubbed). Signs of use and a few small flaws, a pretty good copy with the bookplate of Harry Austin Brentnall, Sydney medico and bookmaker and book collector. Au$275
First edition of this scarce thriller which within few pages has us transfixed, with our British singing student narrator, by a ghoul - perhaps a beautiful vampire - in an old Vernona graveyard.
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LINDEN, Annie. Gold. A Dutch-Indian Story for English People. London, John Lane 1896. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in blind; 285pp and 1896 publisher's list. A little browning; a rather good bright copy. Au$475
First edition of this rare Indonesian lost race fantasy; there was also a New York edition which looks no easier to find. I'm not sure exactly where the dread lost land of Moa and its mountain of gold is but our explorers sail through the Moluccas on their way from Java; once we leave the Banda Islands the geography turns imaginary. Ms Linden starts slow but ends pretty ruthless; most of her worthy characters die miserably while our hero is pretty much a faithless greedy madman well before book's end. There is enough, more than enough, local colour to convince me that first hand experience is at work here. I found mention of a couple of short stories - one about untameable half-caste women (who populate these pages too) - by Linden and one other novel, in English: a domestic drama dismissed as "Dutch fiction" in the one notice I saw; nothing else in English or Dutch.
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KERNAHAN, Coulson. Captain Shannon. London, Ward Lock 1897. Octavo publisher's near black cloth titled in red; 16 plates by F.S. Wilson. Inner front hinge cracked by insertions but solid. A rather good copy. The insertions are a signed cabinet photo of Kernahan (top gone from this); a signed card with an aphorism and a one page letter from Kernahan. Au$300
First edition of this thriller, one of Kernahan's more successful. Captain Shannon was what is now called an Irish terrorist.
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KERNAHAN, Coulson. The Dumpling. A detective love story of a great labour uprising. London, Cassell 1906. Octavo publisher's black cloth titled in white with an illustrated onlay; four plates by Stanley L. Wood. A very second hand copy, rubbed and worn at the tips, one plate loose ... but, inscribed by Kernahan 'To "S.L.H." (Sledge Hammer") from C.K.' Au$50
First edition of this cleverly subtitled thriller. It doesn't leave a lot to say about the book - except for the opium den of course.
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FEVAL, Paul. The White Wolf; or, The Secret Brotherhood. A romance. London, J.S. Pratt 1849. [Yorkshire printed, by Pratt in Stokesley]. 16mo; wood engraved frontispiece, title leaf and pp11-444, complete and seemingly as issued. Inserted into a blindstamped cloth binding of a title in Milner & Sowerby's Cottage Library with a small printed paper title label added to the spine, front hinge splitting. Certainly a used copy, with marks and smudges and corners off the last two leaves but still quite decent. Au$185
First English edition? It seems likely, perhaps even the first edition in English. I find nothing earlier except for a dubious listing of an 1848 New York edition of which no copy is located. It doesn't seem natural for a small provincial publisher to be first in with a major piece of translation but Pratt - apparently a family concern that had specialised in sermons and improving tracts - went sensational in the forties publishing such titles as Arwed Gillenstern, or the Robber Captain's Bride; Fanny Campbell, the Female Pirate Captain; and The Gipsy of the Highlands: or, the Jew and the Heir.
It took me a while to be convinced that this is a home made remboitage rather than a repackaging of Pratt sheets by Milner & Sowerby with later fiddling but I am sure. I'm not going to removed the title label to see what's underneath, it's too much a part of the book's history now. This was in Walter Stone's collection - he had a reasonably impressive collection of bloods, gothics and similar trash - and it's possible he did it but the endpapers and what look like bookseller's pencilling make me think it was done before he got it.
Someone thought it worth saving and they were right. Searches of all the expected catalogues finds one copy, also in the colonies - in the University of Queensland.
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[Lord Howe Island. Its zoology, geology, and physical characteristics]. [Sydney, Australian Museum 1889]. Five parts octavo plain blue wrappers (these variously chipped, a couple detached); 42; 6; 26; 24; 28pp, five plates, four folding maps. The fragile wrappers have suffered but the parts have clearly never been used. Au$250
Rare - a set of the parts produced as offprints, separately paginated and each with the stamped title at the top of each section title: 'Australian Museum, Sydney Memoirs No .2, "Lord Howe Island, its Zoology &c" Sydney 1889.' The parts are Etheridge on general zoology, North on Oology, Ogilby on reptiles and fishes, Olliff on insects, Etheridge on geology. The two plates of molluscs which were included in the book edition though the accompanying paper itself never appeared are not, naturally, included here. A quick hunt through Trove found three parts in two libraries, no complete set.
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BUXTON, Thomas Fowell. An Inquiry, Whether Crime and Misery are Produced or Prevented, by Our Present System of Prison Discipline. Illustrated by descriptions ... sixth edition. London, for John & Arthur Arch &c. 1818. 12mo, uncut in modern boards; viii,184pp; some spotting or browning but a very acceptable copy. Au$300
Six editions of this inflammatory little book appeared in 1818; all and any are uncommon. Much of its power must be attributed to the fact that the descriptions of all prisons, except Philadelphia, are first hand - dates and names are specified - and that, despite some repugnance, he has not suppressed "scenes which may be considered as reflecting discredit on those who ought to have prevented them". The immediate result of this was the Society for the Reformation of Prison Discipline and more indirect influences can be followed through translations into French and Italian over the next few years.
Buxton was born, bred and then married into the heart of British philanthropy - his mother was a Quaker do-gooder and he married Hannah Gurney, Elizabeth Fry's sister - and his life was devoted to reform: his first book (this) is on prison reform and his last (1839) on slavery.
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RUSKIN, John. John Ruskin on Himself and Things in General. Liverpool, Cope's Tobacco Plant 1893. Octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper; [10],64pp, including some adverts. A nice unopened copy. Cope's Smoke Room Booklets No.13. Au$175
A wonderful cover image by John Wallace that manages to appoint Ruskin to the racist image cadre, offend economists if anyone cares, and puzzle the rest of us. Why is the slaughtered figure clutching the "Wealth of Nations" sack and carrying the book 'The Dismal Science' black? After posing the same question David Levy and Sandra Peart in 'The Secret History of the Dismal Science' lead us straight to Carlyle and the paragraph in which he coined the term: "Exeter Hall Philanthropy and the Dismal Science, led by any sacred cause of Black Emancipation, or the like, to fall in love and make a wedding of it, —will give birth to progenies and prodigies; dark extensive moon-calves, unnameable abortions, wide-coiled monstrosities". This seems to me to call for unnatural erudition on the part of the average commercial illustrator but Wallace wasn't average.
The booklet itself offended Ruskin or his publishers but it wasn't the cover, it was the unauthorised printing of his words that angered them and they mounted a successful case against the Cope Brothers for breach of copyright. If Ruskin was still aware of anything much by 1893 certainly he would have been unhappy with tobacco merchants co-opting him, devoutly anti-tobacco as he was, for marketing.
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von HALLE, Ernst. Trusts or Industrial Combinations and Coalitions in the United States. NY, Macmillan 1895. Octavo publisher's cloth. Quite a good copy. Au$125
First edition of this influential and widely circulated book; it was circulating in Japanese by 1900.
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MAFFEI, [Scipione]. A Compleat History of the Ancient Amphitheatres. More peculiarly regarding the architecture of those buildings, and in particular that of Verona ... made English ... by Alexander Gordon. London, for Harmen Noorthouck 1730. Octavo contemporary calf (spine worn, hinges cracked but holding); xvi,423pp, 15 engraved plates (9 folding). Occasional light browning, rather good. Au$750
First English edition, a second appeared some five years later; from the Italian of 1728. Designed to be part of Maffei's Verona Illustrata (which followed later) particular point is made of the decision to publish in octavo rather than a "pompous" folio - part of which is its purpose as a guide to be used on the spot. Also emphasized is Maffei's hands on approach, excavating and measuring himself. He gently censures, in "a handsome manner," the errors of Lipsius and Fontana but much less gently reproves the "destroyers of ancient monuments", exposing their names to "the perpetual Reproach of Mankind".
Maffei's re-evaluation of the architecture and rewriting of the history of amphitheatres was generally well received but his discovery of the entablature of the Tuscan order in the amphitheatre at Verona sparked a sharp rebuke from at least one architect - Matteo Lucchese - who published a scornful reply to this book in 1730. While Maffei's desire to record and preserve was noble - and quite a new phenomenon -he couldn't help a little optimistic re-creation.
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HOLYOAKE, Manfred. The Conservation of Pictures. London, Dalton & Lucy 1870. Octavo later cloth (rather dusty); viii,84pp. Ex library with a blindstamp and a small hole at the very top of the title, some small splodges and flaws but a totally acceptable copy. Au$200
Rare and pretty significant in the history of art conservation - this book is credited as the first use of the term 'conservation' in relation to art. Holyoake was son of the troublemaker George and probably inspired by the family lodger, restorer Henry Merritt.
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>Catalogue - printing type. Government of India. Printing Department. Specimens of Type in the Central Printing Office. Calcutta: printed by the Superintendent of Government Printing 1886. Octavo publisher's cloth (wear to the tips); xpp and 180 leaves of specimens printed on one side, several in colour. A rather good copy. Au$2,500
A rare and impressive type book with plenty of fonts and fancy borders and decorations - some of these are printed in colour; a gathering of vernacular fonts where Greek comes after Urdu, Persian, Tamil and so on; twenty odd specimens of ink in various colours; and finally, brass type. Colony against colony, it would be interesting to compare this with the New South Wales version - the specimen book issued by Thomas Richards in 1882 - but that is as rare as this and I'm yet to see one. I do wonder whether the appearance of the book from a parvenu colony like New South Wales incited the Indian office to action. A search of the likely catalogues finds three copies of this worldwide, including the St Bride copy.
*Click on the picture to see a couple more.
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Colour. A Grammar of Color. Arrangements of Strathmore Papers in a variety of printed colour combinations according to the Munsell color system .. Strathmore Paper Co., Mass 1921. Small folio publisher's cloth backed boards (a couple of small bumps to edges); 28,[4]pp & 19 folded & slotted sheets of sample papers colour printed, illustrations in the text. Au$175
A paper sample book elaborated into a treatise on colour theory - and a very attractive one - by a star cast: Munsell of course, who has contributed a preface, T.M. Cleland, Rudolph Ruzicka and Arthur Allen.
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>DYE, Daniel Sheets. A Grammar of Chinese Lattice. Harvard Univ Press 1937. Two volumes quarto publisher's cloth; b/w illustrations: some 2500 patterns. An insignificant mark on one cover; a very good set. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series V. Au$350
First and best edition. A practical copybook and one of the great efforts of collection if not classification; the first on Chinese lattice the author thinks since 1631. The result of twenty years collecting, Dye called an end to his work with the death of his draughtsman Mr Yang Chi-shang in January 1936. He does comment that, though there must be more examples he hasn't found, some three hundred patterns collected since 1933 but not included in this book contain no basic variants.
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HUGHES, Rupert. The Lovely Ducklings. London, Hurst & Blackett [1928?]. Octavo publisher's cloth. Some foxing but very decent in mildly chipped and frayed dustwrapper with a Sydney bookshop price label on the spine. Au$60
First English edition probably, in a smart flapper dustwrapper by Bip Pares, more stylish than the American original.
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CHALMERS. Stephen. The Affair of the Gallows Tree. NY, Doubleday for the Crime Club 1930. Octavo, very good in publisher's cloth and mildly chipped dustwrapper. Au$50
First edition.
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PAIN, Barry. Playthings and Parodies. London, Cassell 1892. Octavo publisher's blindstamped green cloth. A rather good copy. Au$60
First edition. Not unamusing, some parodies including Kipling, Ruskin and Tolstoi and a number of short pieces.
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BOOTHBY, Guy. Love Made Manifest. London, Ward Lock [1899]. Octavo publisher's decorated blue cloth blocked in gilt. Endpapers a bit browned as usual, a pleasing bright copy. Au$125
First edition. From Apia to Sydney to Belgrave Square our hero wins his way to fame and fortune only to find a peril worse than any of Boothby's opium addled Asiatic fiends lying in wait for him.
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RUSSELL, W. Clark. The Romance of a Transport. NY, Cassell, 1893. Octavo publisher's decorated green cloth blocked in green and gilt. A rather good copy. Au$150
First edition; the English edition with it's better known title, 'The Convict Ship', appeared in 1895. A thriller, detailing the adventures of a young woman who joins a convict ship dressed as a boy to accompany her wrongly convicted love to Australia, their escape and search for truth and vengeance; plenty of death and villainy flavoured with salt water and tobacco juice as you would expect from Russell. This American original was unspotted by Miller/Macartney. Trove finds two copies in Australian libraries, presumably added since Macartney's work.
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CURTIS, Leonard Samuel. The History of Broken Hill - Its Rise and Progress. Adelaide, Frearson 1908. Quarto publisher's cloth backed printed boards; 200pp, numerous photo illustrations and advertisements. Small label mark on the front, still an unusually good copy of a book that didn't wear well. Au$125
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FOWLES, J. The Sydney Drawing Book, composed of scraps for little hands ... easy shaded studies. No. 1 [ ... No. 2. then it becomes The Elementary Free-Hand Drawing Book ... No. 4; and No. 5] Sydney, all printed by Gibbs, Shallard & Co. [185-?]. Four parts oblong quarto, publisher's printed wrappers, stab sewn; each part with four litho plates. No. 5 is as usual called the third edition; parts 4 and 5 have instructions printed on the wrappers. Signs of use but pretty good for such fragile things. Au$500
Four of the five parts known to exist. Part six does exist, but no part three has ever been sighted. With the instructions to part four Fowles adds a short introduction which refers to 'prefatory remarks to this publication' but what they are and where they may be remains a mystery.
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THOMAS, John Jones. Britannia Antiquissima: or, a key to the philology of history (sacred and profane). Melbourne, Henry Tolman Dwight 1866. Octavo publisher's dark green ribbed cloth blocked in blind; xxii,216pp, various symbols and runes on two lavender tinted plates. A few smudges (most noticably on the title page) and small flaws but quite a good copy. Au$225
Second edition - the only edition recorded by Ferguson -but clearly the 1860 first edition sheets with a cancel title despite a contrary note by the author on the back of that cancel - the errata and acknowledgements give it away.
Cimbro-Celtic studies it seems, plotting the Cimmerians of antiquity to their descendants the Cymry, the ancient Welsh. This, with further volumes, was to establish the 'positive facts of an immemorial world .. the originators of mathematical, metaphysical, and astronomical sciences. A mystery to me all this (I'm puzzled by the origins of triclinium: couch or bed, which seems to have its root in three knees), it gets druidical a fair bit and was also a mystery to much of his audience judging by his hurt and plaintive introduction ("a piece of useless learning" and "nought but Welsh" are two judgements he quotes). He thanks those though who share his zeal in creating a Victorian Classic Literature. Another three volumes were mapped out but it seems catty to remark on their existence.
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STEINMETZ, Andrew. A Manual of Weathercasts; comprising storm prognosis on land and sea .. adapted for all countries. London, Routledge 1866. Small octavo printed orange cloth (rubbed and marked); 208pp, wood engraved frontispiece, illustrations and diagrams through the text. A few annotations, presumably by Melbourne meteorologist John McRae whose ownership stamp is on the front fly. Au$75
An appealing little book, mostly designed for general observors but a few chapters aimed at scientific investigators, ship-masters and the like.
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ZEHNTNER, L. [Leo]. A collection of papers on the pests and diseases of sugar cane in Java: Levenswijze en Bestrijding der Boorders I [... to VI]; De Plantenluizen van het Suikerriet op Java I [... to IX]; Praktische Wenken voor Entomologische Wekzaamheden op Suiker-Ondernemingen; De Mineerlarven van het Suikerriet op Java; De Wevervogels in het Suikerriet op Java; .. etc. Soerabaia [Surabaya], van Ingen 1896-99. 16 papers quarto together in contemporary quarter roan and mottled boards, all wrappers preserved; 18 plates (15 chromolitho - the two plates in the paper on weaver birds are photographic). Offprints from Archief voor de Java-Suikerindustrie. A couple of blotches on the first wrapper but in all fine and fresh. Inscriptions to, and label of, entomologist Alfred Preudhomme de Borre who has added a manuscript table of contents. Au$800
A sidelight perhaps but still interesting is watching the progression of printers of the plates through these papers: those in the early numbers were printed by Trap in Leiden, the middle numbers move to Jena and Vienna, and by the end van Ingen is printing them himself in Surabaya.
The peculiarities of sugar growing in Java - crop rotations which demanded rapid harvesting and processing - and a couple of crises led to the most advanced studies and experimental stations in east (whence came these papers) and west Java and, in 1893, the central journal, Archief voor de Java-Suikerindustrie, was established. Zehntner came from Switzerland to Java in 1894 and spent ten years there, working first on sugar cane later on cocoa, before heading off to South America. Preudhomme de Borre had been a golden boy of European entomology; his radical improvements in the Belgian Royal Museum of Natural History became a model for the way museums work worldwide but by the time of these papers he had fallen out with the director and retired to Switzerland.
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LAWRY, Rev. Walter. Friendly and Feejee Islands: a missionary visit ... [with] A Second Missionary Visit to the Friendly and Feejee Islands ... London, Mason 1850 & 51. Two volumes octavo publishers red cloth blocked in blind and gilt; folding map and six wood engraved plates in the first book. Au$900
A well tended pair since new, with a respectable Wesleyan provenance. Both are inscribed as a birthday present to Mrs Tait from her "old pupils" Betsy, Mary and Maria in October 1851 at Bass Lane House. These "old pupils" were, in 1851, between eight and thirteen and are the daughters of cotton mill owner John Robinson Kay, grand-daughters of Richard Hamer (each of his three daughters inherited a cotton mill). Mary Hamer married Kay in 1834 and their home was Bass Lane House in Bury. Kay was a stalwart Methodist and built the Summerseat Methodist School - next to his Wesleyan church; he seems to have pretty much built an entire Wesleyan village. The records of well-to-do, well meaning society and Methodist Societies of the period are buckshot with ackowledgments to the Kays and their relatives, in much the same way that pockets of Lancashire still are peppered with landmarks bearing their names.
Lawry was an early Wesleyan presence in the south seas, arriving in Sydney in 1818 and missionising Tonga in the early twenties. The first book here is his journal of his return in 1847 - after some twenty five intervening years of mixed success, or failure, as a churchman and missionary - and his visit to Fiji; augmented by an appendix gathering the present state of Fiji. The second book records his second tour in 1850. The immediate narrative of such an integral figure in the taming of the most savage south seas made these books modest best-sellers and neither are rare; but such well cared for copies paired since birth, with thoroughly proper ownership, are.
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John Martin. MONTGOMERY, Robert. The Sacred Annual: being the Messiah, a poem in six books. London, John Turrill 1834. Octavo, bound by Rolwegan; [xvi],300pp; "illuminated" extra title and ten handcoloured mounted lithographs, three by John Martin, others by M'Clise, Etty, Haydon, Franklin &c. Martin's 'The Temptation' bound as the frontispiece as usual; this plate without its printed guard leaf, the rest all present. Some smudges and scattered spots but in all pretty good.
A once very smart early Tasmanian binding - straight grain calf or morocco, in the romantic style, by George Rolwegan of Hobart, with his binding ticket - now rebacked with the remnants of the original spine preserved. Au$600
The fourth edition of Montgomery's 'Messiah' but now the only sought after edition - celebrated for the three coloured lithographs by John Martin.
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DAVIS, John Francis. Sketches of China; partly during an inland journey ... between Peking, Nanking, and Canton; with notices and observations relative to the present war. London, Knight 1841. Two volumes octavo publisher's gilt cloth (a touch of wear to the tips); folding map. An old parliamentary library stamp on each title page, some spotting around the map and at the very end of the first volume; a good bright set. Au$650
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von ERDBERG, Eleanor. Chinese Influence On European Garden Structures. Harvard Univ Press 1936. Quarto publisher's cloth (a touch of wear to spine top); [6],221pp & 95 illustrations. Au$100
Harvard Landscape Architecture Monographs I. A scholarly but none the less interesting study. With an annotated list of the buildings mentioned giving description, bibliography and present condition, if any.
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>FURNIVAL, William James. Leadless Decorative Tiles, Faience, and Mosaic ... history, materials, manufacture and use of ornamental flooring tiles, ... recipes for tile-bodies, and for leadless glaze and art-tile enamels. Staffordshire, the author 1904. Large thick octavo publisher's cloth with inset illustration; xxiv,852pp; 37 plates (18 colour), numerous illustrations. Mild signs of use but an uncommonly good copy. Au$450
Probably the definitive work on 19th century tile manufacture, this is an enormous compendium on the history and manufacture of decorative tiles. And, more importantly perhaps, this contains the results of years of research into ridding the industry of lead-poisoning. Furnival notes that almost 600 women and girls working in the manufacture of earthernware and china had died of lead poisoning between 1895 and 1898. With added contributions on tiles in China (by Bushell), in India (by Clarke and Marshall), and on designing (by Ambrose Wood).
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[Sydney University]. Up and Atom! University Students' Festival Song Book 1946. [Sydney 1946]. Quarto illustrated wrapper; 32pp, illustrations throughout. A bit used. Au$75
A title for the times; and the first University songbook since 1940. The atomic age is reflected inside in one humourous piece on pre-atomic culture, otherwise it's the usual pre-occupations of university students: sex and ridiculing the faculty. Catalogue searches, including Sydney University, find only the NL copy - can this be right?
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Atom Bomb. The Effects of the Atomic Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Report of the British Mission to Japan. London, HMSO 1946. Octavo printed wrapper; vi,22pp & 24 photo illustrations on 12 plates, a diagram at the end. Au$75
The commission spent November in Japan, its object to "point to general conclusions on the effects to be expected from similar atomic bombs, should they fall outside Japan, and in particular in Great Britain." The conclusions were "sombre": "Not all the remaining 200,000 would constitute a rehousing problem: because about 50,000 of them would be dead or would die within eight weeks".
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WEBER, Max. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Being part I of Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. London, Hodge 1947. Octavo publisher's cloth. A very good copy. Au$50
First English translation.
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CARMICHAEL, Robert D. The Theory of Relativity. NY, Wiley 1920. Octavo, very good in publisher's cloth; 112pp. Mathematical Monographs No. 12. Au$125
Second edition, first published in 1913 it is here updated with a substantial new chapter on the general theory. Carmichael is celebrated by having his own numbers (Carmichael numbers of course). These are numbers which either relate or don't relate to Fermat's little theorem (I haven't quite grasped the finer details yet); and while once there were thought to be be very few Carmichael numbers it has been recently shown there are an infinite number of them. Very satisfying to have an infinite amount of your own numbers I would think.
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MASON, B.J. The Physics of Clouds. Oxford Univ Press 1957. Octavo publisher's cloth (a touch faded); 481pp, numerous photo illustrations, illustrations & diagrams through the text. A very good copy. Au$50
First edition.
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HART, George. The Violin: its famous makers and their imitators. London, Dulau 1887. Octavo publisher's cloth; 450pp, a few wood engraved illustrations through the text. A few spots at the very ends but a very good copy. Au$50
The popular edition which has a few illustrations but not the wood engravings found in the more expensive editions.
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NECKER, [Jacques]. A Treatise on the Administration of the Finances of France. Translated ... by Thomas Mortimer. London, printed at the Logographic Press 1785. Three volumes octavo speckled calf (spines darkened). Inoffensive library stamp on each title; one gathering at the end of volume two rather spotted; occasional light browning elsewhere; a rather good set; with half titles. Au$600
First edition in English, and much scarcer than the French original of the previous year.
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PEIRCE, Benjamin Osgood. A collection of 20 mathematical and physical papers. v.p. 1877 - 1904 20 offprints and extracts, varying octavos together in early cloth, wrappers (when issued) preserved. In excellent shape. Au$300
Peirce's papers from 1903 to 1913 were collected and published by Harvard University in 1926 but his earlier papers apparently remain fugitive. A short title list: 1. A New Method of Comparing the Electromotive Forces; 1877. 2. The Determination of the Law of Propogation of Heat; 1877. 3. Preliminary Work on the Determination of the Law of Propogation of Heat [with Edward B. Lefavour]; 1877. 4. Emmissionsspectra der Haloidverbindungen des Quecksilbers; 1879. 5. Electromotorischen Krafte von Gaselementen.; 1879. 6. The Sensitiveness of the Eye to Slight Difference of Color; 1883. 7. The Charging of Condensers by Galvanic Batteries [with R.W. Willson]; 1889. 8. Measurement of the Internal Resistance of Batteries [with R.W. Willson; 1889. 9. Some Theorems Which Connect Together Certain Line and Surface Integrals; 1891. 10. Some Simple Cases of Electric Flow; 1891. 11. The Properties of Batteries; 1894. 12. Thermo-Electric Properties of Platinoid and Manganine; 1894. 13. Electrical Resistance of Certain Poor Conductors; 1894. 14. A Certain Class of Equipotental Surfaces; 1895. 15. Thermal Conductivities of Marble and Slate; 1895. 16. Induction Coefficients of Hard Steel Magnets; 1896. 17. Properties of Seasoned Magnets; 1898. 18. Thermal Conductivities of Certain Poor Conductors - 1 [with R.W. Willson]; 1898. 18. Perception of Horizontal and Vertical Lines; 1899. 19. Thermal Conductivity of Vulcanite; 1899. Some Elementary Theorems Concerning the Steady Flow of Electricity; 1904.
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Louis de Rougemont. Grien on Rougemont; or, the story of a modern Robinson Crusoe. As told in ... the Daily Chronicle. Illustrated by ... Phil May, and other pictures. London, Edward Lloyd 1898. Folio publisher's colour illustrated wrapper (somewhat foxed, some short tears); 34,[2 advert]pp, illustrated throughout. A used but not indecent copy. Au$200
Louis de Rougemont (really Henri Grien) exposed and ridiculed while his Adventures were still appearing in the Wide World, before his book appeared. This compilation of condemnatory evidence gives something of his true history and seemingly sad life in Australia. Appended is a short pantomime sketch by that so called Barry Pain.
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