These books haven't necessarily been uploaded to antiqbook yet. So, if you order through antiqbook and get a message claiming the book has been sold, email in case that isn't true.
These books haven't necessarily been uploaded to antiqbook yet. So, if you order through antiqbook and get a message claiming the book has been sold, email in case that isn't true.
Wada Sanzo. 配色総鑑 [Haishoku Sokan]. Tokyo, Hakubisha 1933-34 (Showa 8-9). Six volumes (198x130mm) of plates in publisher's cloth with title labels; a 40 page booklet in wrappers and four colour sample plates on two folded card leaves all together in publisher's folding case with clasp and title label. The plate volumes constitute a total of 348 accordian folding card leaves with mounted colour samples arranged in pairs in the first two volumes, trios in the next two and quartets in the last two. The colour samples are all mounted and captioned in Japanese and English. The outer case browned with outer hinges split but solid. A rather good set, extra complete with errata slip, a card made to be cut up and all the loose tissue guards. sold
First edition of this fabulous dictionary or grammar of colour - there is a recent reprint - a sophisticated synthesis of western and Japanese theory and usage.
Wada's place in Japanese art has been assured since his 1907 prize winning painting Nanpu - which in western terms sits somewhere between Winslow Homer and beefcake pinup, much as Winslow Homer did. But Wada got more interesting as he got older and a return to Japanese painting in the twenties along with his design work and colour research pushed along an increasingly assured generation of artists with a grasp of west and east and an intent of their own. Wada's name might have been unfamilar in the west until recent years but you don't have look far to see his ideas at work, spread by second and third hand borrowings.
Unknown to the amazingly bad Osborne 'Books on Colour Since 1500' (as a book a waste of ink and paper, as an ebook a waste of electrons); Yale has a copy in the Faber Birren colour collection and there are now sets in the Met in New York and the Getty. OCLC finds no other copy outside the National Diet Library. Neither can I in all the places where I can think to look.
HUSKISSON, W. [William]. Shipping Interest. Speech of the Right Hon. W. Huskisson in the House of Commons ... London, Hatchards 1827. Octavo, sewn as issued; 93pp. Au$150
"Perusal of this pamphlet must infallibly produce upon the brain of any but a madman ... the overthrow [of] ... the very ignorant, or very little scrupulous, complaints brought against him ... The Speech ought, indeed, to be made the manual of everybody ... who desires a sample of the danger which might befall this country, were implicit credit given by Parliament to the assertions of interested men." (The Times as quoted in The Speeches of the Right Honourable William Huskisson).
Huskisson is of course best known now to be the first person known to be run over by a train - Stevenson's Rocket no less. Here he answers the attacks and petitions from digruntled parties all over the place against his legislation relaxing shipping laws and moving toward free trade. This was important stuff as Britain moved from being ruler of the sea to being the largest stakeholder in a web of trading nations and empires. Huskisson's record on slavery and a minimum wage for the working poor is best left unexamined right now.
Huskisson wasn't on his feet talking the whole 93 pages. A fair slab is appendices with facts and figures.
Dante. TOZER, Rev H.F. An English Commentary on Dante's Divina Commedia. Oxford Univ Press 1901. Octavo, rather good in publisher's cloth; viii,628pp. Au$80
Sugoroku. 現代冒険立志双六 [Gendai Boken Risshi Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shin Shonen 1916 (Taisho 5). Broadside 64x47cm printed in red and black. Folded as issued, a nice copy. Au$300
The new year gift from the boy's magazine Shin Shonen for 1916, this muted but still exciting game celebrates some Japanese heroes. Too many may be soldiers but there is a scientist, an aviator, an explorer - Antarctic explorer Shirase Nobu is there - and a sumo wrestler too. This seems to be a rare game.
Sugoroku. 大正少年双六 [Taisho Shonen Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shonen Sekai 1915 (Taisho 4). Colour broadside 54x79cm. Folded as issued, a nice copy. Au$350
A gift from the boys' magazine Shonen Sekai and, as always with boys' sugoroku, packed with excitement and adventure. Girls sometimes get to watch in awe.
Sugoroku. Kawame Teiji. トモダチ双六 [Tomodachi Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Gekko Tomodachi 1917 (Taisho 6). Colour broadside 64x46cm. Used with some short tears or separations in the folds repaired; a pretty decent copy. sold
This game was the new year gift from the kids' magazine Gekko Tomodachi. It seems to be a mishmash based on folk or fairy stories, often brought right up to date with airplanes and automobiles. Why a kangaroo is carrying a long legged Daruma in her pouch is a question I can't answer.
HOYLAND, John. A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies; designed to develope the origin of this singular people, and to promote the amelioration of their condition. York, printed for the author by Wm. Alexander 1816. Octavo 19th century half gilt calf (a little rubbed); 266,[2 publisher's list]pp. Some light browning, most obvious on the title page, but a rather good, quite handsome copy. Au$275
First edition; only edition really, leaving out modern reprints and facsimiles. Notable for being the first serious book on, and the first sympathetic defence, however misguided, of the English Gypsies. And notable for the insubstantial stories about Hoyland himself, his supposed fall from Quaker grace and dalliance with Gypsy maidens.
LOUGHEED, Victor. Vehicles of the Air. A popular exposition with working drawings. Chicago, Reilly and Britton 1909. Solid octavo publisher's cloth; 479pp and some 269 photo illustrations and diagrams etc through the text. Quite a good copy. Au$150
First edition and right up to date; published in November 1909 it covers the Paris Aeronautical Salon which closed in mid October. I hope whoever organised the illustrations for this book was never allowed near the blueprint of a machine; I trust it wasn't Lougheed, who designed motors. Nor his brothers who became Lockheed Aircraft Company.
Lougheed anticipates a future with small machines for one or two persons, cheaper than a motorcycle; more or less an evolutionary step from the motor car in terms of individual freedom.
Wine Labels - Sample Book. Myncke Freres, Brussels. The printer's sample album of wine labels printed by Myncke Freres of Brussels. n.p. 1930s. Oblong quarto (230x315mm) flexible linen album with some 220 lithograph labels plus some neck labels and vintage dates (ranging from 1915 to 1937) mounted on both sides of 31 leaves. Nothing removed and all in great shape. Au$550
This is an album to be shown to clients rather than a scrap book. There are numbers of labels for specific wineries and appellations and numbers more that are for generic varieties or, in some case, unlettered altogether. All are signed Litho Myncke or initialled LM or MF.
The Mynckes seem to have made something of a specialty of wine - a rummage round the internet finds a couple of large posters for champagne - and this album shows they had a fairly long reach across western Europe - France, Belgium, into Germany and includes some Port labels in English. The styles also range around, from the classic and restrained (it's hard to beat a modicum of gold on glazed midnight blue) to vibrantly modern to garish kitsch.
Hikifuda. Tsumura Juntendo. 中將湯 - へルプ [Chujo Yu - Herupu]. [Tokyo? 1908-09]. Colour lithograph 265x375mm. Old vertical folds, stabholes in the right margin and tips clipped from the left corners indicating it was once part of an album. A pretty good copy. Au$225
Tsumura Juntendo - still in business - began selling herbal remedies in Tokyo in the 1890s and HELP - Tsumura's herbal wonder cure for women - went on the market in 1907. This handsome hikifuda - handbill or poster - includes a calendar for 1909.
Teruha toiletry poster. 白麗水 [Hakuresui or Hakureisui]. A shop poster for Hakuresui toiletry to whiten the skin and remove blemishes. Osaka, Takegaki Shokai c1910. Colour lithograph 53x38cm on quite heavy paper. A couple of tiny edge chips, a near invisible repair to a short tear; a rather good copy. Au$1,200
Among the myriad images that use race superiority and fear to sell goods - particularly soaps, toiletries and cosmetics - this is the weirdest and most hypnotic that I've ever seen. The weirdness intensifies if you know that the model is Teruha, maybe Japan's most famous geisha and pin-up girl at the end of the Meiji and through the Taisho period.
Born Tatsuko Takaoka, in this poster she is about 14 and has possibly graduated from her apprentice name, Chiyoha. Sold by her father at 12, her virginity was soon sold to the president of the Osaka stock exchange and by the time she was 14 she had been engaged to one wealthy business man, promised to another and had a secret affair with an actor. The extended left pinkie finger must be a joke about her misguided sacrifice to love which earnt her yet another name: the Nine Fingered Geisha.
Before and after - or with and without - comparisons were nothing new in Japanese advertising. Neither were celebrities: courtesan prints sold patent medicines long before the Americans arrived and Bismarck adorned adverts for a patent syphilis cure that did for medicine what Bismarck did for Germany. Darkie - coon, nigger, whatever you want to call it - advertising images were obviously not unknown but neither can they have been familiar enough to be taken for granted and reproduced to the American and British formula in the way that the jazz age negro became a standard pattern to be played with by artists and designers in Japan as everywhere else. There is more than hint of a jovial tengu, spirit or minor god here, but for that suit.
New Guinea. Keystone View Company. Stereoscope card: Natives of New Guinea in their picturesque sailing craft. Keystone [190-?]. Stereo images on printed card (89x178mm); printed description on the back. The card curved, in fine condition. Au$30
COTSWORTH, Moses B. The Rational Almanac Tracing the Evolution of Modern Almanacs from Ancient Ideas of Time, and Suggesting Improvements ... 13 months to the year. Holidays and festivals, also weekdays fixed on permanent days ... 180 illustrations explaining the mystery of the pyramids, sphinx, obelisks, druidical circles, mounds, vertical stones, etc. Acomb, York, Cotsworth [1904?]. Very tall, narrow octavo publisher's elaborately decorated gilt cloth (a bit rubbed and bumped or worn at tips); [6],16,64,16,1-154,154a-154p,155-471pp, numerous illustrations throughout. Used but still quite a good copy. Au$275
Just the form and appearance of this book invites ridicule and relegation to the loony fringe. And so it seems to have been for the most part. Cotsworth was well respected and successful in statistics and accountancy but, according to George Eastman, he was broke in New York by 1924 having spent everything and sold his collection of pictures to finance his International Fixed Calendar League. Eastman stepped in, backed him for a number of years, and applied his calendar within Kodak.
In the mid to late twenties it seemed possible - the League of Nations had taken on his calendar and the US government was taking it seriously. Most of this almanac is devoted to investigating and explaining ancient measures of time. I've come across many citations of the importance and lasting worth of Cotsworth's work here but most of them come from doubtful sources; they may be true, or not.
A note by Cotsworth explains that this book was printed over a number of years; some of the pyramid stuff before his 1900 trip to Egypt which "led to those remarkable extensions which proved to be so highly desirable, although they deferred the issue of the book and considerably increased the cost"; the earlier part of the almanac section in 1902; the "main proposals were in print before March, 1899"; and a 16 page section on pink paper is priced at a penny and was issued separately.
It is designed to fit a pocket, a deep one, and this copy shows signs of being pulled in and out of a pocket more than thumbed.
Japanese textiles. 都業 [Miyako Gyo]. [Kyoto, Gencho Yuzen? c1930?]. 27x20cm publisher's boards, ribbon tied (covers smudged); [2],32pp with 40 textile samples and 20 glazed mounted colour illustrations on card leaves; and another four undyed swatches. Some browning of the card but pretty good. Au$300
A smart sample book - produced by the Kyoto yuzen dyers association - of fairly luxurious yuzen fabrics for kimono sashes - obi - matched with colour illustrations of the finished product. All the fabrics here - numbered 251 to 292 - are slathered with silver.
CALABRELLA, Baroness de. Evenings at Haddon Hall ... with illustrations from designs by George Cattermole. London, Colburn 1846. Largish octavo later half blue crushed morocco by Root; 24 handcoloured plates. An excellent, handsome, quite remarkable copy. Au$375
First edition. Haddon Hall hasn't been admitted into the Gothic canon and this is almost unfair. A melange of tales - one by Ainsworth - most have more than enough blood, murder, turmoil, torment, torture and revenge to qualify.
This was immensely popular through the 19th century, perhaps due to Cattermole, but I think it now has been wrongly relegated with the simpering Victorian books down the pretty end of the shelf. I couldn't find a publisher's advertisement for coloured copies so it presumably wasn't offered for sale coloured; I did find a record of a copy, also bound by Root, with the plates in two states - what these states were wasn't explained.
ROBERTS, Morley. The Adventure of the Broad Arrow. An Australian romance. London, Hutchinson 1897. Octavo publisher's cloth (cover marked); eight plates by A.D. McCormick. A few spots and minor signs of use; a pretty good copy. Au$450
First edition, colonial issue, of one of the more famous west Australian lost race novels - though lost race is stretching it a bit. The white tribe here is descended from escaped convicts. But they are swimming in gold and there were pygmy cave dwellers.
BANKS, Charles Eugene. John Dorn Promoter. Chicago, Monarch Book Co 1906. Octavo, excellent in publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in ochre, black and gilt; illustrations by August Abelmann. A sparkling copy. Au$100
First edition of this thrilling romance of the timber industry featuring a swindling count, an heroic Indian chief and a rabbi. Is it the start of a bad joke?
ROWE, George. The Fairy Bed-Maker. A farcical novel. London, Ward Lock 1903. Octavo publisher's illustrated black cloth blocked in white, grey and gilt; two illustrations by Will Owen. Minor signs of use, a rather good copy. Au$125
First edition of this fantasy concerning a staid young solicitor saddled with a cockney fairy laundress or char which soon sees him accused of murder.
SUE, Eugene. Paula Monti: or, The Hotel Lambert. London, Chapman and Hall 1845. Octavo 19th century gilt half calf (side a little scuffed); 20 plates "engraved under the superintendence of Mr. Charles Heath, from designs by Jules David". An excellent and handsome copy, mostly still unopened. Au$175
First English edition of this romantic thriller. From near the end: " ... deceived by the dusk, by Bertha's cloak, and particularly by his conviction that his wife was in the chalet, shot the princess. The next morning the shawl of Iris was found floating in one of the lakes. It may be remembered that De Morville had said to Paula that a solemn oath ... another of the machinations of Iris ... the gipsy girl had ... represented a fearful picture of the fierce and suspicious jealousy of the Prince ... some murderous strategem ... " And I've still left you plenty of thrills.
BROCK, R.W. [ie John Alexander Barr]. Mihawhenua: the Adventures of a Party of Tourists Amongst a Tribe of Maoris Discovered in Western Otago, New Zealand. Recorded By R. W. Brock, MA, LLB. Edited By R. H. Chapman. (Being a Manuscript Addressed to the Editor, Found Attached to a Maori Kite on Mount Alta ... Dunedin, Wilkie & Co 1888. Octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper (spine chipped); 198,[2 adverts]pp. Used but a very decent copy. Au$450
A lost race thriller with the race being discovered in a lush world around a warm lake hidden in the mountains. Barr published a few novels all in a rush, including two thrillers - one Australian - under the name Gilbert Rock but his own story is perhaps more exciting than Moa riding Maoris, cannibals, and treacherous French sailors. A Dunedin lawyer, he petitioned in 1888 for a protective tax on all imported literature, assuring the government that he was "prepared to supply the colonial market with literature if inducement offers." All his known novels then appeared by November. Soon after he did 'the Pacific Slope' (a great term I hadn't heard before), abandoning his family and absconding with many thousands of his clients' pounds either lost or in his pocket.
Here Barr vanishes from view except for a startling piece in the Auckland Star of October 1 1894 in which is mentioned a letter just received by Sir George Grey from the author of Mihawhenua with a return address but an indecipherable signature. No-one could decipher the signature so Grey's secretary cut the signature from the letter and pasted it onto the reply. No connection was made between the author of Mihawhenua and the missing lawyer. A final glimpse is a London death notice in 1907 which identifies him as a former solicitor of Dunedin and tells us he has been living in England with his wife and family for five or six years. I wonder if it was the same family.
The dedication, to the colonial press in "grateful acknowledgment", of one of his thrillers, 'By Passion Driven', was declined on conscientious grounds by the Christchurch Telegraph who said, "What object Mr Gilbert Rock could have had we do not know". Perhaps his dedication was for The Daily Telegraph who described his 'Colonists' as "not a badly told story."
VESCELIUS-SHELDON, Louise. An I.D.B. in South Africa. NY, Lovell [1888]. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth (a couple of small spots); illustrations through the text. Minor signs of use but a good, bright copy. Au$125
First edition, there was a London issue using these sheets. I don't want to give away too much but this is complicated. We begin in a theatre box in the Kimberley diamond fields with Herr Schwatka divulging to an near stranger that the fascinating beauty in the box opposite has Zulu blood. Before the end of this short chapter Count Telfus has been arrested in that same box for having an illicit diamond (IDB is an illicit diamond buyer), handcuffed, locked up and has shot himself in his cell. The South African police frisk prisoners for diamonds, not guns.
Donald Laure worships his part Zulu wife Dainty but has a guilty secret or two. She has not yet had the passion in her soul awakened but she does have a black dwarf servant with a glass eye.
James P. Lind. A pair of photographs of a Melbourne house and garden taken when new and sometime later. n.p. [188-?] Two albumen prints on photographer's printed mounts; the mounts 248x304mm, the images 155x209mm and 150x211mm. The mounts damaged and stained, the second photograph with some spotting; a small blotch on the first. Au$800
Unusual: a pair of professional house portraits taken from the same spot a few years apart. In the first the comfortable bungalow is brand new and the bare garden is laid out and optimistically stars three tree ferns. In the second the garden is established but for the poor tree ferns and the owners are proud to be on display showing off house, garden and industrious maid. A curious feature of this house is what must be a mock stone exterior, should make it easy to identify if it still exists.
Lind's address on the later photo here is 91 Chapel Street, Windsor. Davies and Stanbury place him at 915 Chapel Street, Prahran, in 1891 but I think that's a transcription error.
Toxteth Lodge. A photograph of Toxteth Lodge in 1885. n.p. Albumen print 142x198mm on original mount 229x304mm, inscribed on the back, "Toxteth Lodge, Nov 1885". Mount spotted. Au$400
An informative view of the quite new gothic revival gatehouse to George Wigram Allen's Toxteth estate in Glebe showing a house quite different in detail and very different in its site from the carefully restored roadside showpiece of today.
Allen senior's house, Toxteth Park, designed by Verge, can be seen on the right.
POPE, James H. Health for the Maori: a manual for use in native schools. [with] Te Ora Mo te Maori: he pukapuka mo nga kura Maori. Wellington, Govt Printer 1884. Small octavo, the two together in contemporary gilt calf (edges scuffed); 121pp;129pp. A rather good, appealing copy. Au$450
Both the English and Maori versions of this plain speaking work. After all, "Maoris, old and young, call a spade a spade" and they need to hear the truths "which they must learn to respect if they are to escape extermination". One chapter is titled "Why the Maori Population is Decreasing, Although War has Ceased" in which due respect is given to the problems introduced by whites - pakeha. But Pope is adamnant that it is the fault of the Maori that they choose to accept the bad customs of the pakeha - rum among them - and not the good customs like tilling neat patches of fenced ground. The Tasmanian Aborigine, with some magnificently specious reasoning, is made an object lesson: that now extinct race "learned some of the bad ways of the whites, but none of the good ones."
Charles Bayliss. Photograph of Pitt Street, Sydney, looking south. n.p. [c1881-83]. Albumen print 150x199mm, on original mount now trimmed close, with studio blindstamp, in excellent shape. Au$450
Bayliss manages here - in this woman-free view of mercantile Pitt Street that shows a more established, grander street than some of his other views of Pitt Street - to capture all the elements of a lesson in perspective from a baroque drawing master.
Charles Bayliss. Photograph of George Street, Sydney, looking south. n.p. [c1884?]. Albumen print 149x202mm, on original mount now trimmed close, with studio blindstamp, in excellent shape. Au$450
A fine busy view of the retail heart of Sydney. More ramshackle than the financial monoliths of Pitt Street, none of what can be seen here survives. In the centre of the picture is the Royal Hotel. To its left is Foley's Hotel.
Exhibition - Paris 1867. RIMMEL, Eugene. Recollections of the Paris Exhibition of 1867. Philadelphia, Lippincott [1868]. Octavo publisher's green cloth decorated in gilt; 340,[4],xvi [adverts]pp, wood engraved illustrations throughout. Light foxing; a rather good, bright copy. Au$300
American issue but London printed, London bound and with London advertisements. It came out with London, Paris and Philadelphia imprints in English and is a translation from the French edition, based on articles for two newspapers. A good general survey by the perfumer, both artistic and scientific, including a modest illustration of his own perfumery stand and an account of his exhibited apparatus. Some but not all of the advertisements at the end are for his perfumery and his 'The Book of Perfumes'.
BROOKS, Detective James J. Whiskey Drips. A series of interesting sketches illustrating the operations of the whiskey thieves in their evasion of the law ... to which is added, a circumstantial account of his attempted murder by the Philadelphia Whiskey Ring ... the only authenticated instance of hired assassins in the United States. Philadelphia, Evans [1873]. Octavo publisher's decorated brown cloth blocked in gilt and black (spine tips worn); 349,[3]pp and four wood engraved plates. Inner front hinge cracked but firm. Au$120
First edition, it was reprinted or re-issued in 1876 with the duller title The Adventures of a United States Detective. Quite uncommon, unlikely as it seems for this type of American book of this period. Usually there are plenty of shabby copies of such books around.
Unlike many of these true stories Detective Brooks did exist, he was famous for his Whiskey Ring exploits. He became head of the American Secret Service and died in 1895 of heart trouble - apparently exacerbated by having a bullet imbedded in it for 16 years.
Whether or not he wrote this it is pacy and readable and as much of his investigations involved corruption within the service as illicit distilling.
Gall etc. COMBE, George and Dr. A, [Andrew]. On the Functions of the Cerebellum, by Drs Gall, Vimont, and Broussais, translated ... by George Combe; Also Answers to the Objections Urged Against Phrenology by Drs Roget, Rudolphi, Prichard, and Tiedemann, by George Combe and Dr. A. Combe. Edinburgh, MacLachlan & Stewart 1838. Octavo publisher's patterned cloth with paper spine label (a bit marked); xliv,339pp, a few illustrations. A mild tidemark on the endpapers but no further in.
An appealing copy even without the inscription 'To Dr. A. Brigham with best regards from Geo.Combe 12 November 1838'. Au$850
First edition and a pretty fabulous association. Amariah Brigham was a founder of American psychiatry and, like many well-meaning reformers and progressives in the field, held to phrenological principles. Combe was in America in November 1838, it was early in his American lecture tour - a stay of two years - and had met Brigham on his arrival in New York. Brigham was more or less in charge of arranging the lecture tour.
The date of this inscription is puzzling: Combe's entry for November 12 in Notes on the United States of America (1841) recounts a visit to Salem but nothing more. So why this day? The book itself is one of the central pillars of Combe's, all the early phrenologists, attempt to establish a sound scientific and reasoned basis for phrenology in the face of ridicule and attacks of more respectable and respected scientists.
MOORE-BENTLEY, Mrs M.A. An Original Hypothesis of the Origin of Life. n.p. [Sydney 1917? - some copies are inscribed "Copyright by the Author 1917" ]. Octavo publisher's cloth, titled in gilt on the front cover. [4],202pp including 45 illustrations on 10 leaves numbered 192-201, 202 on verso. Printed from typescript with some ms corrections. Ex theological library - as was the last copy I found - but not offensively so. Au$175
Mary Anne Moore-Bentley is perhaps best known as the author of A Woman of Mars, or Australia's Enfranchised Woman (Sydney 1901) which involved a visiting Martian feminist. The complexity of this work precludes me from offering a synopsis; it ranges from the supposition that 'organic life originated from photographic impression' to an investigation of the 'affect of faith upon skin pigment'.
An unjustly neglected work? I don't know, but neglected certainly. Mary Ann Moore Bentley, or Mary Ling (her married name), stood for the senate in 1903 - the first year women in New South Wales could vote - and, while she didn't win a seat, she did pretty well for votes. She self published a number of pamphets and polemical books over the years; this is maybe the most ambitious and the oddest.
CLAPPERTON, George. Practical Paper-Making. A manual for paper-makers and owners and managers of paper mills ... London, Crosby Lockwood 1894. Octavo, excellent in publisher's cloth; xii,208pp and two publisher's lists, the second dated 1901, 16 illustrations on eight plates. Inscribed 'H.J. Spicer Esq from his brother Sam April 1904' - surely members of the current generation of paper makers. Au$150
First edition. Though it took a few years to sell there were more over the next thirty odd years. I think the last was revised by the next generation of Clappertons (Robert Henderson) in 1929, the same year he published his Modern Paper-Making which presumably superceded this.
CLAPPERTON, Robert Henderson & William HENDERSON. Modern Paper-Making. London, Benn 1929. Large octavo publisher's cloth; 365pp & illustrated adverts, numerous photo illustrations, diagrams, measured drawings &c (one folding). A signed presentation from Henderson to G.D. Clapperton. Au$100
First edition, a couple more followed. A solid technical account of materials, treatment and machinery written to encompass the "amazing advances in the technique of paper-making during the last decade". It remained the standard work for the next three decades.
The paper making Clapperton and Henderson dynasties remain unplumbed by me. A Clapperton and a Henderson, both sons of neighbouring papermakers, worked for Cowans in Edinburgh and died in the first world war. Is G.D. the earlier generation's George whose Practical Paper-Making was published in its last edition revised by R.H. this same year? And I doubt that it is any coincidence that Clapperton's second name is Henderson.
LIVINGSTON, Robert R. Essay on Sheep: their varieties - account of the Merinoes of Spain, France &c. Reflections on the best method of rearing them, and raising a flock in the United States; together with miscellaneous remarks on sheep and woollen manufactures. Concord N.H. Daniel Cooledge 1813. 12mo in sixes publisher's quarter calf and marbled boards; 143pp, a wood engraved Merino on the title. Some browning and signs of use but a pleasing original copy. Au$275
Third edition; first published in 1809. Livingston is remembered in America but not, outside sheep circles, for introducing the Merino to America, unlike Macarthur in Australia who has a prominent place in the history books and whose portrait, along with a merino, adorned our currency for some time.
Still, Livingston did pretty well out of them anyway even if he did have to, as has been stated, create his own boom by buying back his own stock until the rising prices caught the interest of others. And he got his own stamp - but for his political and diplomatic achievements. This is an extended advertisement for the Merino but he does pack in some practical lessons learnt first hand.
Livingston was aware of Macarthur - he introduces him as the success story of the southern hemisphere - and it seems inconceivable that this book in turn wasn't used in Australia but of the four editions (three American and one London edition with notes by William Cobbett) I can only trace the copies in the Mitchell Library (this edition) and Sydney University.
STOKES, George Gabriel. Memoir and Scientific Correspondence .. selected and arranged by Joseph Larmor. Cambridge Univ Press 1907. 2 volumes octavo, very good in publisher's cloth with remants of the dustwrappers; 475 & 507pp, four portraits. Au$500
Quite uncommon.
BROWN, Ernest W. An Introductory Treatise on the Lunar Theory. Cambridge Univ Press 1896. Large octavo, very good in publisher's cloth (a touch worn at the tips); xvi,292pp and errata slip. Au$750
First edition and quite scarce. It's a bit off the point but this extract from a letter on teaching by Professor W. Edwards Deming of New York University caught my attention: "No luster of personality can atone for teaching error instead of truth. One of the finest teachers that I ever knew could hold 300 students spellbound, teaching what is wrong. The two poorest teachers that I ever had ... were Professor Ernest Brown in mathematics at Yale and Sir Ronald Fisher at University College in London. Sir Ernest will be known for centuries for his work in lunar theory ... People came from all over the world to listen to their impossible teaching, and to learn from them, and learn they did".
Sydney Harbour Bridge. [BRADFIELD, J.J.C.] Sydney Harbour Bridge. Report on Tenders. Sydney, Govt Printer 1924. Foolscap folio publisher's printed boards with cloth spine; [2],63pp, 22 photo plates, 22 plans (some folding). Some signs of use but a pretty good copy. Au$650
The Harbour Bridge decided upon at last. After more than 25 years of commissions, competitions, unfulfilled legislation, recalcitrance and bloody-mindedness, Bradfield announces the bridge we finally got. He does more than this of course, making this probably the most useful document in the long and turgid history of the bridge: the Report reviews all the proposals by the six firms that submitted tenders and illustrates the major contenders - thus giving us a pageantry glimpse, at least, of what Sydney Harbour might have looked like.
Despite this open-minded approach there is little doubt that Bradfield had already designed the bridge that would be built - the first tender specifications issued were withdrawn and the revised specifications pretty well spelled out the bridge that Bradfield was prepared to build (based on New York's Hell Gate Bridge).
The final sections detail the stages of construction and we end with a glowing vision of the bridge illuminated for an occasion of 'national rejoicing' - exactly what we have each New Year, except that Bradfield's bridge is illuminated as a memorial to the military forces.
Peter Thomson. The Cabinet Makers' Assistant: a series of original designs for modern furniture ... Glasgow, Blackie & Son 1859. Folio later quarter morocco; viii,4,lxxxx,60,63pp, 101 plates. Used and ex library with a stamp on the title and blindstamps on the plates, some repairs to edges; a decent copy of a working book. Au$900
One of three or more editions or issues between 1853 and 1863 and maybe the most used mid-Victorian furniture pattern book there is. Furniture from this book was made all over the world.
Thomson was not so prescient: he notes that Australian cedar is useful for packing cases but I bet Lenehan's 1857 cedar table for Government House in Sydney - taken straight from plate 19 - would fetch a lot more than any rosewood or mahogany veneer Thomson had in mind.
LOUDON, J.C. An Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture; .. a new edition; London, Longman &c 1836. Stout octavo contemporary green gilt calf (edges a bit rubbed, a small and inoffensive flaw in the back hinge); xx,1138pp, hundreds of wood engraved illustrations and plans. Quite a handsome copy. Au$975
Probably the fourth edition, and probably much the same as the 'new edition' of 1835, both claiming numerous corrections and re-engraved plates - this refers to the original litho plates that had already disappeared from many copies of the first edition, replaced by wood engravings.
Only the first edition had the imprint of Howe in Sydney and Melville in Hobart but nonetheless this book, in all its editions, was the most used architecture book in Australia during the middle of the 19th century.
Catalogue - Cast Iron. A. Durenne, Paris &c. Societe Anonyme des Etablissement Metallurgiques A. Durenne. The company c1900. Octavo publisher's cloth backed boards (rubbed and a bit worn); [2],727pp, thousands of illustrations. Used but decent enough. Au$450
An enormous range of balustrades for balconies, staircases, bridges, friezes and fringes, door panels and fanlights, balusters, columns, pilasters, finials, grilles and gates, etc. Printed earlier but issued after the 1900 Universal Exposition, with a stamp on the title announcing their prize.
[BALLANTYNE, R.M.]. Fighting the Whales; or doings and dangers on a fishing cruise. London, Nisbet 1863. Small octavo publisher's decorated green cloth blocked in gilt and blind; 124,[2]pp, four colour litho illustrations; two page publisher's advert at the end. A nice, bright copy. Ballantyne's Miscellany volume I. Au$135
First edition and an appealing copy of this dramatic little book. Nisbet advertises 15 titles in course of preparation and 16 did appear over the next several years, but not all the titles advertised.
LEGRAND, Edy. Voyages Glorieuses Decouvertes des Grands Navigateurs & Explorateurs Francais. Paris, Tolmer 1921. folio publisher's illustrated boards & cloth spine; 2 folding maps & illustrations throughout coloured by pochoir. A remarkably good copy in a cloth chemise and slipcase. Au$750
One of the triumphs of modern French book making which, fittingly enough looks back to the triumphs (or glory at least) of Cartier, de la Salle and La Perouse.
GETTY, Alice. The Gods of Northern Buddhism. Their history, iconography and progressive evolution ... Oxford Univ Press 1928. Quarto publisher's gilt cloth; lii,220pp and 68 plates (eight colour). A couple of small tape stains on the front fly, still a rather good copy. Au$300
Second edition, revised.
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 original boards (spine chipped); viii,184pp, 4pp publisher's adverts. A little browning, a few spots; quite a good copy with the bookplate of Robert Dundas, Viscount Melville, administrator, politician, statesman &c who gave his name to several spots around the world including two in Australia. Au$350
Six editions of this inflammatory little book appeared in 1818, this being the last of course. Much of its power comes from the fact that the descriptions of all prisons with the exception of 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 European languages 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: this is his first book and his last (1839) is on slavery.
Sasaki Hayashi. 少年活動双六 [Shonen Katsudo Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shonen Sekaidai 1916 (Taisho 5). Colour broadside, 54x79cm. Rumpled and used with an old repair in the centre but no loss. Decent enough. Au$250
This was the new gift for 1916 from the magazine Boy's World: a romping game of sport and adventure with an international touch. British and American boys have gracefully, joyously, acknowledged our young Japanese hero as the champion.
Kawabata Ryushi. 少年未来旅行双六 [Shonen Mirai Ryoko Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Nihon Shonen 1918 (Taisho 7). Colour broadside 78x54cm. Some smudges, a short tear in one fold; used but a very decent copy Au$650
The New Year gift from the boy's magazine Nihon Shonen. A view of travel in the future, this is among my favourites of the travel adventure sugoroku and hard to find in anything like one piece. Doubtless it was a favourite with many others too.
Kawabata did several of the best, most captivating, sugoroku of the period. His career took a curious turn during a 1913 stay in America to study western painting. Apparently he was so impressed with the Japanese art he saw in Boston he switched to being a Nihonga painter. Still, he remained being an illustrator for magazines for quite some time. As did most of the early to mid 20th century artists now revered.
Okamoto Ippei. 主婦之友 - 漫画双六 [Shufunotomo - Manga Sugoroku]. Tokyo, Shufunotomosha 1929 (Showa 4). Broadside 64x94cm; colour printed. Several repairs to separated folds but all there. Au$300
A splendid large and lively sugoroku - racing game - by the illustrator/cartoonist whose place in modern manga history is still being argued.
Issued as a New Year supplement to the magazine The Housewife's Friend, the game is an intriguing melange, to me, of the modern and traditional, whether in conflict or harmony or all round mocked I don't know. The winning post - the joyful family of plump plutocrats with both husband and wife looking remarkably like lucky gods - is the dream of the modern young woman being hatched from an egg in the upper right but she is not the starting point of the game. There seems to be several starting points. Did any young western woman ever dream of being rich and fat?
Okamoto Ippei began as a newspaper cartoonist for the Asahi Shimbun in 1912, travelled to the US in the twenties and brought back an enthusiasm for American comic strips which quickly spread through Japan. A prolific artist naturally, he has a long bibliography and much of it is found in scatterings in western libraries but I know of only one with a copy of this.
SCOTT, H.H. A Monograph of Nototherium Tasmanicum. Hobart, Govt Printer 1915. Quarto, excellent in printed boards; 22 plates, folding table. Department of Mines Geological Survey 4; with Scott's 'Some Notes on the Humeri of Wombats' (Launceston Museum 1915; 4to wrapp,[12]pp, 4 plates) loosely inserted. Au$165
A signed presentation. Scott collects earlier papers and adds an "exhaustive analysis of the skeleton as a whole". Is this then the definitive monograph on the extinct giant marsupial?
Silk. A Treatise on the Origin, Progressive Improvement, and Present State of the Silk Manufacture. London, Longman &c 1831. Small octavo contemporary polished green calf decorated in gilt & blind; extra engraved title, 39 illustrations through the text. Stamp at the foot of the title but a good and particularly pretty copy. Au$100
One of the more uncommon and interesting of Lardner's voluminous Cabinet of Useful Knowledge.
COPPIN, George. The Coppin Portfolio. Melbourne, Waddington & Co [1881?]. Cloth portfolio (178x120mm) decorated and titled in gilt on the front (cloth flecked); containing 7 photographs mounted on Waddington's printed cards, being a straight portrait and six of Coppin in costume as his favourite and most successful characters. Each titled and signed by Coppin. Au$3200
This must be about the best possible copy of this quite rare little portfolio, marking as it does not only Coppin's departure from the stage but the passing of the baton from the greatest of Australia's first generation of actor-managers to the greatest of the next (and subsequent) generations. The portfolio is inscribed with Coppin's compliments and thanks to Mrs J.C. Williamson at the Matinee Testimonial for Coppin at the Theatre Royal on Dec 10th 1881. The small playbill for this has been mounted inside the back board and Coppin's own bookplate, dated 1860, is also pasted in.
Coppin brought the Williamsons, J.C. and the missus Maggie Moore, to Australia in 1874 with their hit play 'Struck Oil' and in September 1881, with Coppin more serious about retirement, Williamson took over the lease of the Theatre Royal. Coppin then began his series of farewell performances, the most important of which were his dozen farewells to Melbourne culminating in this testimonial in which Mr. and Mrs. Williamson appeared in the 'celebrated farce, The Fool of the Family'.
I have only sighted a couple of these portfolios the photographer Waddington produced as part of the rapturous celebration and both were inscribed and signed. The only library I can find in Australia that has a copy (University of Melbourne) has a presentation copy, dated two days earlier. The State Library of Victoria doesn't seem to have one but they do have all seven photos on Waddington cards, three of which are inscribed in the same way as these. Whether these portfolios were ever for sale I don't know, but in any case while some of the images in them are well known, the complete portfolios have pretty well vanished.
POUCHET, Georges. The Plurality of the Human Race: translated and edited ... by Hugh J.C. Beavan. Longman, for the Anthropological Society 1864. Octavo publisher's cloth. A very good copy. Au$200
Pouchet did little to advance his father's belated theories of spontaneous generation but his theories of separate species of humanity were perfectly timed. His intention seems less to be to establish racial supremacy, unlike Gobineau and most of the American polygenesists - being French he probably saw no need to press an already ineffaceable advantage - than to cudgel Christianity.
This English translation is invaluable for having been prepared by a horrified Englishman of the upright and conscientious type; the best type. Having been charged with the task Beavan has dutifully prepared it for presentation to the English public despite his raging disapproval: "when Author and Editor differ so considerably ... such very peculiar ideas ... I am sorry to find in it opinions with which I cannot at all agree ... science is strained in an unnatural manner .. entirely unproved ... much to be regretted ... Author and Editor are in entire disagreement ... better left unsaid ..." come from his quite short preface. Still, he has been unable to restrain himself from peppering the book with angry footnotes..
GALTON, Francis. Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development. London, Macmillan 1883. Octavo half gilt morocco; xiv,387pp, mounted photo frontispiece & 4 plates (one folding colour). Ex parliamentary library with their gilt crest on the front board and incorporated into the spine, no other markings; occasional spotting but a rather good, handsome copy. Au$500
First edition. The improvement of the human race; Galton introduces us to eugenics (his word apparently used here for the first time), an idea that, under various names and guises, comes back to threaten us at regular intervals. Possibly more disastrous for us now, though, is his confident claim to have built a proven method of obtaining statistical insight into mental processes through the questionnaire.
The book itself is a happy jumble, a reflection of a mind endlessly curious and ingenious in rationalising the ridiculous and delusionary and marshalling them into place in statistical tables. In Galton's hands this is provoking and entertaining.
GASPAR, Camille. The Breviary of the Mayer van den Bergh Museum at Antwerp. Brussels, Weckesser; NY, Stechert 1932. Quarto, loose as issued in publishers' printed card portfolio; 82pp and 73 colour plates. Au$100
Edition of 300 copies in English.
E. Pugh & Co., Wednesbury. [Illustrated Price List of Cast-Iron Hollow-Ware - E. Pugh & Co.]. The company, before 1891. Octavo publisher's green cloth; [vi]pp, and 71 leaves printed on one side (numbered to 88 with some gaps in the numbering but complete as issued), numerous illustrations throughout. Mounted onto the title is a 64 page revised price list to amend all catalogues issued before January 1891. A note about their enamelling is dated 1884. Au$300
Enamelled and tinned ware: pots, pans, kettles, sifters, coffee mills, spittoons (plain and Turkish), and stable ware.
Kimura Tokaturo. 冠帽圖會 [Kanbo Enkai]. Tokyo, Yoshikawa 1899. folio (370x260mm) printed boards (marked & smudged); accordian folding giving eight double page openings; the first text, the rest coloured woodcuts ranging from two to seven illustrations per opening. One fold separated. Au$300
A particularly lovely book - illustrations of ceremonial crowns and hats of varying elaboration by the artist Kimura Tokaturo. Some of the caps which first appear to be simple monochrome shapes have actually been subtly overprinted, capturing their texture.
The Kojitsu Sosho - Library of Ancient Customs - was an ambitious project - only god and Japanese bibliographers know how many volumes it ran to during the later Meiji period. Produced in all sorts of sizes and shapes, each captured and preserved in traditional form some part of classical, often aristocratic, culture.
The timing of this is no accident. The paired threats to Japanese tradition - from the inroads made by western modernity and the bulk souveniring of art treasures by those westerners - resulted in an industrious revival of historic, nostalgic, nationalism. Again with twin motives: some art was reproduced for the western punters and some for home consumption.
I'm not sure where the Kojitsu Sosho fits best but of the albums I've seen, this is maybe my favourite.
[VENABLES, Robert]. The Experienc'd Angler: or, Angling Improv'd. Being a general discourse ... third edition much enlarged. London, for Richard Marriot 1668. Small octavo sheep (rebacked and recornered); [16],96,[6]pp, extra engraved title and 10 engravings through the text. Some worming at the end - of no great consequence. With the preliminary blank A1. Au$2000
One of the trio of Anglers; it was for a while, later in the century, included with Walton and Cotton but then slipped into relative obscurity. Venables' little fishing book seems to be about the only gentle, even warmhearted, product of an otherwise unhappy, troublesome and mean-spirited man. At least once here he preaches charity to the "sick and indigent" which he does not seem to have been able to extend to his own daughter and grandson.
The first edition appeared in 1662, the second edition seems to have vanished altogether and this third is quite changed from the first. At the end, in a contemporary hand, is a short recipe for bait.
SHAW, Eyre M. Fire Protection. A complete manual of the organization, machinery, discipline, and general working, of the fire brigade of London. London, Charles and Edwin Layton 1876. Octavo publisher's cloth; xiii,332pp and an illustrated 64 page Appendix of Manufacturers' and other Advertisements, having reference to Fire Protection, numerous illustrations and diagrams, a plate and a double page map. Some foxing at the ends but a rather good copy. Au$1250
Uncommon and essential in fire fighting history. As far as Shaw was concerned, this was the first attempt in any language "approaching to a complete or comprehensive scheme" to embody the essential principles and practice of fire fighting. In other countries printed manuals "of some kind or another have been in use for many years .. but they are meagre in the extreme and .. altogether useless for the instruction of fire brigades charged with the protection of great commercial cities". Shaw was of course responsible for the modern London fire department, in turn the model for fire departments around the world.
Commercial Art. An album or sample book of Japanese packaging, labels, brochures and suchlike. c.1960-70. Oblong quarto by size (185x260mm); 81 double folded leaves fastened together with a pin system, of which 59 leaves are crowded, both sides, with mounted labels, packaging, brochures, leaflets, etc. Au$250
Quite recent but nonetheless an attractive gathering of Japanese commercial graphics and printing of the sixties and maybe early seventies; the only dated piece is for Expo 70.
The album itself has been made up by someone in the trade: the double folded leaves are all from multiple copies of the blank back side of a magazine cover or poster - it features a Japanese baseball player by the look of it - but this is as close as I can get to claiming that this is a sample book put together by the printer of its contents. The materials range from the cardboard of packaging to cellophane to rice paper, just as the styles range from classical subtlety to the raucus and crass.
FLADER, Louis [ed]. Achievement in Photo-Engraving and Letter Press Printing, 1927. Chicago, American Photo-Engravers Association 1927. Thick quarto moulded mock leather; hundreds of plates in colour and black and white, some embossed, on a variety of papers. Signs of use but nothing drastic. Au$350
American commercial printing and graphic art at its peak; a self composed hymn to photo-engraving, which gave birth to advertising art according to the prefatory note. And much like virgin mothers, photo-engraving was soon to be ancient history.
Richard of Wallingford: An Edition of His Writings with Introductions, English Translation and Commentary by J.D. North. Oxford Univ Press 1976. Three volumes octavo, very good in publisher's cloth and dustwrappers; 24 plates, other illustrations & diagrams. Au$400
The first critical edition - "indeed the first complete edition ... of any medieval European astronomer" - of the 14th century mathematican and astronomer, with his texts on the construction of his astronomical clock; the "first important work on trigonometry to have been written in Europe"; his treatise on the construction and use of the albion; &c.
CORDINER, Rev Charles. Remarkable Ruins, and Romantic Prospects, of North Britain. With ancient monuments, and singular subjects of natural history. [London, Peter Mazell 1788?]. Quarto calf (rebacked with original spine preserved); frontispiece, engraved title and 53 plates engraved by Peter Mazell, each with one or two pages of text. Some light spotting or browning but a handsome copy. Au$375
An appealing melange with melancholy scenes of ruined grandeur rubbing shoulders with engravings of marine worms (all the natural history plates are of marine life). Issued in parts, the plates date between 1784 and 1788. A second volume or series was added a few years later.
HOLME, Charles [ed]. Colour Photography and other recent developments of the art of the camera. London, The Studio 1908. Quarto publisher's printed wrapper (some wear to wrapper spine and back edge); 113 plates (18 tipped colour). A pretty good copy. Au$275
As usual with The Studio, an intelligent survey of the newest developments in photography, with a scattering of now legendary names and a solid selection of then worthy but now obscure photographers.
Some thought has gone into this, the introduction of colour into photography "immediately and profoundly changes the character of the issues involved". These are issues of aesthetics; can the colour photographer lay any claim to "serious artistic regard". So The Studio has made a big step: "never before has it been possible to arraign so representative a series ... the unique image ... has never hitherto been reproduced with so much sensitive and meticulous loyalty".
Catalogue - Pharmaceuticals. McKesson & Robbins, New York. Prices Current of Drugs and Druggists' Articles, chemical and pharmaceutical preparations, proprietry medicines & perfumery, sponges, corks, dyes, paints, etc., etc., etc. New York 1879. Octavo publisher's flush cut limp cloth, front titled in gilt; 224pp, numerous wood engraved illustrations. One section excepted, printed on pink paper. A rather good copy. Au$375
As well as the goods listed in the title this offers scales, glassware, brushes, surgical instruments and English toothbrushes, and still more.
Tobacco Whiffs for the Smoking Carriage. London, Mann Nephews 1874. Slender octavo contemporary half calf (spine quite rubbed), original illustrated front wrapper bound in; 31pp and nine pages of adverts. Au$350
Slender but tightly packed and eminently useful, with clear and concise descriptions of the wares of various tobacco, cigarette and pipe makers and merchants. At the end we learn of the smoking competitions or 'Cloudy Battles' held by tobacconists in London and the provincial cities.
The advertisements are placed, of course, by some tobacconists or pipe makers but the ancillary vices are also here: oysters, condensed milk, guns, and Australian wine, with a full page advert for Auldana Wines.
CUNNINGHAM, E. The Principle of Relativity. Cambridge Univ Press 1914. Octavo, very good in publisher's cloth, spine faded; xiv,221pp. Au$150
First edition. Called the first English book on relativity, which may well be true. Certainly Cunningham was at the forefront of English relativitism for many years - Dirac went to Cambridge hoping to work on relativity under him but by that time - 1923 - Cunningham decided that he had his hands full and was falling behind the latest research and passed him on to Fowler.
SMITH, James & John Wren SUTTON. The Secret of the Sphinx or, the Ring of Moses. London, Philip Wellby 1906. Octavo publisher's cloth blocked in black (a repair to the front hinge). Used but still a very acceptable copy. Au$600
A later issue of the only edition of this still rare Australian occult fantasy in a Rider binding; Rider took over Welby in 1908.
I think this is the only novel by the journalist and Melbourne cultural luminary Smith and the only publication I can find with Sutton's name attached. Sutton was a medium, a self described "magnetopath" in one news item I found. A John Wren Sutton, sculptor, appears in more papers, including being named as co-respondent in a 1908 "painful" divorce case, and the kind note sculptor Sutton received in Smith's 'Cyclopedia of Victoria' leads me to designate them the same person.
The book received fair coverage, as far as reviews are concerned, largely on the strength of Smith's prominence and one notice claimed this as the first of a projected trilogy. Perhaps public indifference put paid to that scheme, perhaps it was the painful divorce case.
Trove now finds three copies of this in Australian libraries and Worldcat adds not many more outside the deposit libraries of Britain.
ROLLINS Jr., William. Midnight Treasure. NY, Coward-McCann 1929. Octavo, very good in publisher's red cloth and dustwrapper (a couple of tiny chips from the bottom of the dustwrapper spine). Au$150
First edition of Rollins' first novel, a murder mystery narrated by a boy but not for kids; the dustwrapper blurb calls him "kin to Huck Finn". I gather Rollins was something of a bohemian rabble-rouser, better known for his labor novels; I picture him leaning against certain Paris and Greenwich Village bars in a seaman's jersey.
CONRAD, Joseph. Suspense. A Napoleonic novel. NY, Doubleday 1925. Octavo, very good in publisher's cloth and dustwrapper (this with some small chips). Au$125
First edition.
TOLSTOI [or Tolstoy], Count Leo. Ivan the Fool or The Old Devil and the Three Small Devils, also A Lost Opportunity and Polikushka ... translated by Count Norraikow. NY, Webster 1891. Octavo publisher's illustrated pale green cloth blocked in red and black; 172pp, illustrations by Valerian Gribayedoff. Spine a little dull and rubbed but quite a good copy for such a vulnerable binding. Au$175
First edition of this translation; I believe Ivan the Fool had appeared in a translation by Dole but I'm not sure about the other two stories. Norraikow is polite but firm that the translations he has seen, often via French translations, are "far from accurate".
[CAMERON, John?]. Wulla Merrii. The Fire Stick: Incidents in the shearer's strike. A tale of bush life. n.p. [Brisbane 1893?]. Octavo publisher's illustrated boards. A few small knicks, a rather good copy. Au$150
The attribution to Cameron seems fairly well accepted. A virulently anti-union novel so it's no surprise that neither the printer nor author dared put their name on it (both the title and last leaf appear to be cancels - redone without colophon or any other details). Can we presume that fear of retribution also accounts for the fact that so many copies were clearly never circulated until recent decades? Surely it couldn't be the writing, plot, paper thin characters: villainous unionists and cartoon blacks? Plenty of other novels have done well on worse.
Cameron was a pastoralist and politician, a leader of the anti-union movement - they "aimed at nothing short of REVOLUTION" - and a central figure in the strike. A confirmed White Australian he was known to declare, I gather while campaigning for office, that "I have never believed in the principle of one man one vote, and nothing will ever convince me that men should have equal voting rights".
RAY, Frederick A. The Devil Worshipper. Boston, C.M. Clark 1908. Octavo, very good in publisher's illustrated black cloth blocked in gilt and red; colour frontispiece. Au$125
First (only?) edition. Not in Hubin though it should be, while in Bleiler though the only supernatural element is coincidence - a string of concidences that connect the characters, drive the plot and beggar belief. There is a satanic cult but for the most part they could be politely described as ethically disadvantaged. The villain, the central character, worships money. It is money that drives him to kidnapping, blackmail and theft. Much later, once he has plenty of it, a new series of deadly schemes are driven by lust. An oddly old fashioned novel, I would have guessed that it was written a generation earlier except that the climax is the Martinique earthquake of 1902.
[STERNE, Laurence and John Hall STEVENSON]. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. [and] Yorick's Sentimental Journey Continued .. prefixed, some account of the life and writings of Mr Sterne. London, printed in the year 1769. Octavo contemporary calf (spine top a bit worn, hinge cracking but firm); portrait frontispiece. Some light browning and the odd spot but quite a good copy. Au$250
Possibly the first edition of Stevenson's continuation; three editions of this appeared in 1769 and there is still argument about which was first. A Sentimental Journey appeared the previous year, shortly before Sterne's death, and his intimate friend Stevenson, to much critical condemnation, quickly fulfilled the undoubted obligation to complete the work having heard so much of it related to him. The biographical note is the first of any consequence but, according to Lee, Stevenson promised a full life to Sterne's daughter but "was too indolent .. to carry out the promise". Appended is Sterne's "A Political Romance", written in 1759 but suppressed.
Hawaii - missionaries. William Tappan. Wake Isles of the South. n.p. n.d. [c1822-33?]. Nineteenth century manuscript of the music and lyrics on two conjugate leaves, 102x190mm. Au$125
Tappan wrote the lyrics to be sung at the departure of the missionaries - the Stewarts and Betsey Stockton - to Hawaii in 1822 and William Hauser wrote the music that is printed in the 'Southern Harmony' (1835) and associated with the song now. But the music here is close but not quite identical to that which appeared, unattributed, in 'Spiritual Songs for Social Worship' (1833). Which is also the only printed hymnal I found that includes the last verse in this manuscript, "And thou Obookiah, now sainted above" - referring to Henry Obookiah or Opukahaia, the pioneering Hawaiian convert.
Before we label this as a copy direct from the book I should point out that, apart from small differences in notation, the time signature is different and the verses seem to be arranged differently. This appears to the tenor or treble part written out specifically for performance on some occasion.
LUCAS, Dr T.P. [Thomas Pennington]. Cries From Fiji and Sighings From the South Seas. 'Crush out the British Slave Trade' ... a review of the social, political, and religious relations of the Fijians .. policy of the English Government .. white settlers; the labour traffic. Melbourne, Dunn [1885]. Octavo publisher's cloth; 124pp & errata slip. An excellent copy. Au$275
"England is once more a slave-holding nation!" A first hand account of investigations in Fiji and a savage attack on the officialdom of Fiji, the treatment of the Fijians, and the labour trade, with a comparative table of practices between the old slave trade and labour traffic customs.
Lucas, emigre medico, reformer and later crackpot, invented the eponymous pawpaw ointment and wrote a pair of utopian novels, set in a future Brisbane, that I've never seen and would like to find.
BAKER, Richard.T. Cabinet Timbers of Australia. Sydney, Techn. Museum 1913. Oblong quarto publisher's cloth; 186pp. 68 colour plates, hundreds of photo illustrations. One corner a bit bumped but a rather good copy. Au$750
Still the bible of Australian timbers - it supplies colour plates of timber grains, properties and uses, illustrated by examples of cabinet work and interiors.
SMEATON, John. A Narrative of the Building and a Description of the Construction of the Edystone Lighthouse With Stone: ... an appendix, giving some account of the lighthouse on the Spurn Point, built upon a sand. London, printed for the author 1791. Imperial folio, uncut in 19th century cloth (spine top repaired, a bit knocked about but solid and worthy); xiv,198pp; engraving on the title and 23 plates. At the end of the dedication is pasted a printed notice pointing out one correction that should now be made - new information since printing began - and one correction added at the end of the preface should be expunged: the original was correct. Title temperately browned or dusty, a bit of browning and some spots here and there. A pleasing copy with architect A.E. Richardson's bookplate and pencil note that he bought this in Plymouth in 1922. Au$3750
First and best edition, there may be a grander lighthouse book but I can't think what it is. Smeaton privately published this in a small edition using the best paper, designing and constructing it as carefully as his ingenious dovetailed stone building. The book took longer - one plate was engraved in 1762 and the rest were done over some years - and while it was possibly less adventurous and dangerous to make than the lighthouse Smeaton found the writing of it much harder. He apologises for the size of the book and fineness of the paper; he detests the spoiling of fine prints by folding them into a book and blames Whatman for the fineness of the paper: he ordered coarse but Mr Whatman insisted on providing "paper of the best fabric" at the same price as coarse. But still, he remarks, even if the whole of the "small edition in point of number" is sold it won't cover his costs.
Smeaton, rightly, was proved wrong with his doubts about public interest after taking so long to produce his book; the second edition appeared two years later and a third in 1813 but he didn't live to benefit from either.
Bridges. John A. Roebling's Sons Company. Construction of Parallel Wire Cables for Suspension Bridges. Roebling 1925. Quarto publisher's decorated stiff wrapper; [95]pp, numerous photo illustrations. Minor signs of use. Au$135
More interesting than the title suggests thank heavens; much, most of this is a photographic history of the construction of the just completed Bear Mountain - Hudson River Bridge. The longest suspension bridge so far built, it was done quickly and economically thanks to the new methods proudly explained here.
EASTLAKE, Charles L. A History of the Gothic Revival. An attempt to show how the taste for mediaeval architecture .. has since been encouraged and developed. London, Longmans &c 1872. Octavo half crushed morocco by Wood, spine amply gilded; xvi,430pp, 36 wood engraved plates, illustrations in the text. The original cloth from the spine and covers are bound in at the end. Blanks after the marbled endpapers browned but otherwise gleaming; a particularly luxurious copy. Au$500
The essential contemporary survey of gothic revival by one of the biggest of its wigs.
