A child of his generosity

HORNE, R.H. (Richard Henry, later Hengist). Orion. An epic poem ... fifth edition. London, J. Miller 1843. Octavo contemporary half calf (quite rubbed and scuffed).
Inscribed by Horne to Robert Bell and a note about extra lines added to this edition on the next leaf; with Anthony Trollope's bookplate initialled R.B. in the corner. Au$500

I don't know why Horne waited until the fifth edition to give Bell a copy of his best selling book. It wasn't a long wait, even for a man who did not like like giving away his books - he wrote so to G.H. Lewes when he thought Lewes was angling for a copy of his Gregory VII. Lewes suggested that giving away unsold copies was better than seeing them line pie trays. Which might have had something to do with Horne first publishing this at a farthing a copy. So a much smaller loss as a gift than the half crown this fifth edition cost. Which might be why Horne waited: it seemed a more generous gift. Perhaps I misjudge him.
Horne and Bell were friends of everyone and both ended up poor. Bell seems the better friend, procuring money for Horne from the Literary Fund Society when he was thoroughly down and out in Melbourne. Trollope enters this story when Bell, too sick to accept the job Trollope offered him, died in 1867 and unable, with others, to get a pension for his widow Trollope bought Bell's library at a higher price than its appraisal.
Orion is among the books mentioned in Anthony Trollope's Libraries (Grossman and Wright; 1976) which indicates Trollope's rapid integration of Bell's books where Bell's Orion duplicated his own in his 1867 catalogue. A lot of books were culled by his 1874 catalogue but Grossman & Wright don't mention Orion again and Trollope had added Horne's Death of Marlowe.
So this is one of what Sadleir called "doubly precious. They are not only books that once were Trollope's; they are the little children of his generosity".

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"if there are people enough to make it pay, then Sydney is in a parlous state indeed"

HENSOLDT, Dr. H. and F. Allman [ed]. [Henry, originally Heinrich; & Frederick; respectively]. Orient and Occident : a monthly magazine devoted to original studies of the race problem ... By No.3 it had changed to: A monthly magazine devoted to the investigation of supernormal phenomena, popular delusions, organised superstitions, conventional shams ... Sydney, March to October 1907. Eight numbers, 24x17cm, together in modern cloth, the first number with front and back wrappers preserved, the rest with one or the other. An occasional bit of marginalia, rather good. Au$1200

The complete run of this product of the Australian chapter in the life of this liar, fraud, bigamist, thief, and quack. The lies begin in the masthead with the 'Dr.' and really take off on page three with his interview with the Dalai Lama during his first visit to Lhasa.
The most complete life of Hensoldt seems to be that of Stevenson and Gill on microscopist.net. He did make use of whatever education he received from the family business of his father, microscopic slide maker Moritz Hensoldt. During his stay in Sydney - he was apparently here by 1905* - he married wife four or maybe more, Hillend heiress Ada Wythes in January 1908, liquidated her property and they set off for a honeymoon trip that would end on a Texas ranch. It ended in Chicago in February where he and her money vanished. The portrait of him in the Chicago Tribune is the same as that in the first number here. Ada must have been carrying one.
The lies don't stop there. In San Francisco, in May 1908, one Edward P. Bailey gave an interview to the Chronicle saying that he had sold up properties and come from Sydney to meet Hensoldt who would give him half shares in a mother lode in Texas. He claimed to have organised Hensoldt's lecture tours in Australia, helped set up Orient and Occident and introduced Hensoldt to the best of society. Now an Edward P. Bailey was, in October 1907, a certified masseur, offering various electrical treatments, in the Royal Chambers which was also the address of Hensoldt. And some twenty years later Australian born Adventurer (capital A) Col. Edward P. Bailey was offering tours of 'The Great Australian Bush' out of San Marino, California.
The vanished Hensoldt supposedly died in 1914 but Stevenson & Gill have convincing evidence that Paul Börnsen, Hensoldt wife two, Augusta, and daughter Johanna arrived in America in October 1908 and settled in Maryland, later moving to Washington DC. Börnsen there went into the radium as a cure-all industry. In 1917 the FBI began investigating him as a possible German spy and Börnsen vanished. Augusta Hensoldt Börnsen reported herself as a widow in the 1920 census but no death record of a Hensoldt or Börnsen could be found.
Frederick Allman is an ephemeral figure; he vanished from the masthead with number four, presumably without anyone's money. I had been wondering, until I noticed that, whether he was reason this magazine is so well printed on good paper. But the quality doesn't drop and the glimpses of Frederick Allman over the next few years: letters to the newspapers, a Theosophical article, letters to Josiah Cocking; sketch a well meaning, socialist, pacifist, mystical health crank. The sort of person who usually inhabits a boarding house rather than a harbourside mansion. The Sydney Mail review of the first issue tells us he is from Yass and is a long time civil servant. The Burrangong Argus tells us he had been a road engineer at Young. Definitely boarding house material.
In any case Hensoldt had been writing most of the magazine anyway and I doubt it was much of an effort to churn out the rest under the pen names that take over in the last numbers.
Trove finds four locations and Worldcat adds most of a complete run at Stanford. I'm not sure, from their catalogue, whether the SLNSW has a complete run; the other three locations are complete.
"Taking it all round, Sydney has reason to be proud of this well-printed, wonderful magazine, and if there are people enough to make it pay, then Sydney is in a parlous state indeed. I wonder what is behind the magazine?" Review of the first number in the Sydney Stock and Station Journal.

* This is based on the statement of Edward P. Bailey who said he had known him for three years; ie most unreliable. Advertisements for Hensoldt's lectures begin appearing in August 1906.

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Ishimoto Kikuji. 建築譜 [Kenchikufu]. Bunriha Kenchikukai 1924 (Taisho 13) 27x20cm publisher's cloth backed boards blocked in black and gilt (cover browned); 14pp and 50 plates being a colour frontispiece and the rest b/w photos. A little browning or spotting at the very ends, quite a good copy.
I am convinced that the inscription on the front fly begins with 日五 - day 5, the day this was published - and ends with 著者 - author. What comes in between ...? Au$1000

First edition; the architectural souvenirs of a trip to Europe and America by one of the founders of the Secessionist Architecture Group - Bunriha Kenchikukai. Germany is front and centre, if you haven't already spotted that from the cover. At the end of the preface he wonders whether to die for his principles like Gropius, indulge his hobbies like Poelzig, or dream like Taut. What he did in the end was found a firm that now builds massive projects that look like a thousand other buildings.
The two radical architectural groups at this time were the Secessionists - formed in 1920 by six graduates of Tokyo Imperial University, growing to nine members - and the Barrack Decoration Company - formed by Kon Wajiro, Yoshida Kenkichi and a disparate group of designers and artists after the earthquake - who rushed around decorating the temporary buildings thrown up in the ruins. Naturally the purist Bunriha despised the Barrackists. Architecture could be art but artists could never be architects. Successionist Takizawa was not so polite about it.

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WILLIAMSON, W.C. [William Cotter]. Lectures on the Care and Treatment of the Insane for the instruction of attendants and nurses. Sydney, Govt Printer 1885. Octavo semi limp roan titled in gilt on the front (wear to edges and tips). Inner front hinge rudely repaired with brown paper; a used but most acceptable copy. Ownership stamp of the Hospital for the Insane, Newcastle at the beginning of the text. Au$450

"The tiny and very insufficient "handbook" for attendants, published by Dr. L.S. Forbes Winslow, was, until a few weeks ago, the only volume containing practical instructions," says F. Norton Manning in his preface. An English handbook from the Medico-Psychological Association arrived while this going to press and still, "neither ... cover the whole ground, but ... are steps in the right direction".
We might grit our teeth reading this book but Williamson was a proper reformer and his reign at the Parramatta lunatic bin - as assistant from 1883, then superindent from 1900 - was marked by rebuilding and the introduction of gardens; he was keen on gardens. And, of course, the education of attendants and nurses.
This was issued to every attendant and nurse but is now an uncommon book; Trove only finds three entries and Worldcat adds copies at John Hopkins and Cambridge.

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MOORE-BENTLEY, M. [Mary Ann]. Sketched from Life. Published by M. Moore-Bentley, Sydney 1903. Octavo modern cloth; b/w illustrations scattered throughout, most but not all signed C.H.H. Signs of use but most acceptable. Au$325

A political romance and novel of wish fulfillment with a heroine pursued by all the powers of the press, the police, the establishment, variously called "The Lyndhurst Mystery," the "Australian Joan of Arc", the "working man's daughter", physically a "tall, commanding, Minerva-like figure," (Moore-Bentley was described as tall and slender) and finally an "Australian Dreyfus."
At the end is an advertisement inviting subscriptions for A Woman of Mars, or Australia's Enfranchised Woman (1901) with a page of subscribers' names. If that is the complete list then I count 25 copies sold. A lot less that the 18,000 odd votes she got when she ran for the New South Wales senate this same year. A Woman of Mars starred a feminist visitor from Mars in Sydney.
Trove finds two copies of this: at the Mitchell and the National Library; Worldcat adds no more. I noticed that the ADB still lists her under her married name, Mary Ling, a name she had discarded by 1901.

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Russian ship kawaraban. 亞魯西亞舩 [Aroshiafune]. n.p. earlyish 19th cntury. 33x44cm woodcut with hand colouring. A small hole up towards the top left corner; a nice copy. Au$800

I continue to be impressed by the ability of Japanese artists to deliver a true picture of something they've never seen, nor met anyone who has. But the captions puzzle me. Things like sea miles, directions, and so on are often provided on pictures of foreign ships but here not only have the details been left out but whatever ship was on the picture that provided the captions has obviously been ignored. When news broke of the sighting of an alien ship a canny printmaker often dug out an antiquated Dutch ship, changed the flags and added whatever gossip and rumours reported. Not so here. I do wonder what that fluffy pendant (fox tail?) is meant to be.

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Exhibition. 博覧會圖式 [Hakurantaizushiki?]. n.p. Horaido [1872]. 26x36 lithograph? An excellent copy. Au$300

This clutter of bric-a-brac looks much like the oriental antique shop of my childhood dreams. This guide to the exhibition of antique artworks was the starting point for Tokyo National Museum's 150th Anniversary exhibition but their publicity gives us no details beyond the date 1872. I guess you had to be there.
Note that there are some western items included: a few paintings, those busts, what looks like a group of figurines ... The only other record I can find is the title in a gathering of prints called Meiji Restoration Surimono in a Kyoto museum.

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Tokiwa Toyoko. 危険な毒花 [Kiken na Dokubana (sometimes transliterated as Kiken na Adabana)]. Tokyo, Mikasa Shobo 1957. 19x13cm publisher's boards and dustwrapper (a touch frayed) with wrap around (obi) and original cellophane; photo illustrations throughout. Usual browning; a rather good copy. Au$850

First edition of this photographic study of women at the sharp edge of Americanised Japan: Yokohama. It is captivating - from front cover to back - without being in the slightest bit charming. Tokiwa is unequivocal from the start. The front cover declares what this book is: a Japanese woman photographing Japanese women being degraded.
Tokiwa had good reason to be unimpressed with Americans - her father was killed in the fire bombing of Tokyo - but the soldiers and sailors who appear here are no more despicable than the Japanese men swarming around nude photographic sessions in part three and in that last photo - also the first, on the front cover - the woman is being dragged by a man, any man. Degradation is a system. The title of this can be translated as 'dangerous poisonous flower' - a prostitute - but it's the women here who have been poisoned.

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SACHS, Edwin O. A Record of the International Fire Exhibition ... London, 1903 ... principal historical exhibits, the leading mechanical and constructional exhibits ... report of some of the exhibition events. London, British Fire Prevention Committee [1903 or 04?]. Octavo publisher's cloth (spine a touch faded and worn at tips); 274 illustrations (one folding), folding plan. Quite good. Au$600

All there was to know about fire fighting at the beginning of the century. The exhibition marked a new epoch in fire prevention for the British Empire. Sachs himself said so in the first sentence and he was someone to be listened to when it came to fire prevention. And moustaches.

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Tashiro Hikaru. Four ink and wash drawings for illustrations. n.p. (196-?) The best picture is 31x20cm, three have tracing paper overlays with editorial notes. Au$450

As I looked for Tashiro Hikaru it emerged that he has a maybe small group of fans, particularly artists. Most of his work was magazine and newspaper illustration, reproduced as grey blobs and scratches in a sea of grey type, so it's a wonder that he has any fans. You have to be lucky or determined to find something shows what a good draughtsman and what canny eye he had. I was lucky.
He was born in 1913, was recognised young, and studied with Tomita Onichiro, Ishii Hakutei, and Foujita Tsuguharu - a pretty impressive list. He went to work for magazines at the age of 18 in 1931 and continued illustrating novels and stories ever after. He died in 1996
The drawing of the lounging woman is captioned Honmaku Yawa (1924), the play or film script by Tanizaki which was a tangled domestic tragedy apparently based on his own misbehavior. The film featured his sister-in-law who was the model for the character. The thoughtful man is captioned (in rough translation), 'murderous intent won't disappear'. This, I'm pretty sure is the villain in The White Tower (1963-65) by Yamazaki Toyoko. Artists spoke of Tashiro being the only illustrator who could produce attractive villains with gentle faces.
The best drawing, the old man and the women is, I think, also for that book but in the few drawings for serial novels I've found he used that same model for a couple of them. Those serial novels became books but the illustrations didn't come with them.

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Airships. Four illustrations, three of airships and one of a balloon in a tree, on one sheet. n.p. n.d (187-?). Engraving 40x45cm, folded. Au$165

A mysterious print with no indication of who produced it. Each illustration is numbered and captioned in Japanese and three are dated to their original appearance: 1852, 1870 and 1872. They all seem to be from French originals. Number one has "Art de Tuer" in the caption and is supposed to be the wreck of the balloon with Leon Gambetta (escaping from the siege of Paris) on board in 1870; number two is Giffard's 1852 steam powered airship; number three is, I think, a Dupuy de Lome airship of 1870; number four is the Dupuy de Lome airship of 1872.
Was this a supplement to something? Such things are usually identified. Are they proofs? Until someone finds another copy it is all up in ... sorry.

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Dokufu

Ochiai Yoshiki (aka Utagawa Yoshiki). 悪漢茂吉と毒婦つまが縄ぬけ逃亡 [Akkan Mokichi to Dokufu Tsuma Ga Nawa Nuke Tobo]. [This title is taken from Tokyo University's catalogue and it has been used by others. I take it to be a paraphrase of the text]. Tokyo 1874 (Meiji 7). 36x24cm colour woodcut by Yoshiku. A nice copy. Au$450

Issue 220 of the special colour supplement to the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun (Tokyo daily news) which captures the villain Mosuke or Mokichi and his Poisonous Wife escaping their captor after they were captured in August 1872; the original article appeared in October 1872 but it took a while to develop the picture. I'm uncertain about our villain's name: he is Mokichi in the text but Mosuke in the banner beside him. Cataloguers usually follow the text.
A peasant's wife who cripples herself in the field alongside her husband is a model wife. A clerk's wife who festers at home and cripples her children is a model wife. But let the wife of a vicious thug, who is after all a worker, share in her husband's work ... poisonous woman. Thank heaven the world's not like that any more.
 Dokufu, poisonous women, are for all time but the first few decades of the Meiji, with the advent of western style newspapers, made for rich pickings. 

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Kon Wajiro & Yoshida Kenkichi. モデルノロヂオ : 考現学 [Moderunorojio - Kogengaku]. (Modernologio on the cover). Tokyo, Shun'yudo 1930 (Showa 5). 26x20cm, publisher's decorated cloth blocked in white, red and black (spine fairly rubbed); 361pp, profusely illustrated throughout, a few photo or colour plates. Edges browned, a second hand copy showing signs of being well read but certainly acceptable. Au$350

First printing. This is an extraordinary book; the gospel of Modernology. Kon and Yoshida have compiled an encyclopaedia, surely unsurpassed, of the apparently ordinary, of the people of Tokyo, fit to provoke unseemly enthusiasm in theoreticians and urban planners ever since. I gather that their thesis - born out of watching the people of Tokyo begin to rebuild after the 1923 earthquake and fire - is that those who do the planning, designing and building know nothing of what people actually do, what they own and how they use those things ... how they live and who they are.
The cover, signed Ken, and a lot of the illustrations are by Yoshida who has re-spelled his name on the cover for the sake of the design. The more I find out about Yoshida the more interesting he gets. I'm starting to think he was, to Kon, what Braque was to Picasso.

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Yokohama. 横浜実測図 [Yokohama Jissokuzu] Map of Yokohama. Tokyo, Naimusho Chirikyoku 1881 (Meiji 14). 117x181cm engraving on four joined sheets; folded. An excellent copy. Au$650

An impressive survey map, a bit larger than a tatami, so not to be unfolded in your average worker's boarding house room. I don't know why that average worker wanted this map, nor how they got it, but they would have to explore Yokohama fold by fold.
The bureau of geography was established in 1874 and mapping of the Kanagawa prefecture began. It all stopped as departments were abolished, merged and renamed. Mapping was completed and this map published in February 1881. I don't know about other maps. This one is uncommon enough, Worldcat finds only an 1883 printing with none outside Japan.

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堺祥雲寺五葉松之図 [Sakai Syounji Goyomatsu-no-Zu]. Kyoto, Maeda Kazuyoshi 1892 (Meiji 25). 25x33cm lithograph; folded. Au$100

Truth in advertising? We all know there never has been any, but still. A photograph from about 1895 shows the fabulous old pine tree of the Shounji temple in Sakai near Osaka about one storey high at its peak, but the camera does lie. Or maybe I'm wrong and our artist (Kouseki?) is faithful to the awe instilled in the visitor. The tree was destroyed by an air raid during the war and I believe a still infant tree was planted to replace our tree in a few hundred years.
Ancient tree in an ancient temple maybe, but this view is aimed at the modern tourist, what with that western transliteration, and the urbanites outnumber the pilgrims by 50%.

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The Fijian Hiawatha

CAREY, Jesse. The Kings of the Reefs. A poem, in one hundred and seventeen cantos. Melbourne, Spectator Publishing 1891. Large octavo. Three engraved portraits as plates, wood engraved ills through the text after Percy Spence but I wouldn't like to insist that they were designed for this work.
The blank facing the title is inscribed: Presented by the author, to his beloved wife, Lydia Carey. As a memento of her valuable help in the composition of the work, and of the interest she took in its progress, from the commencement, to its publication J. Carey. Memo: This copy was bound in London in 1892 and presented as the above on the 17th June, 1893.
This special binding is curious in that is a standard publisher's decorative cloth binding - pretty, completely inappropriate and the kind that appeared on hundreds of books. It is blue cloth in a sand grain with different black and ochre geometric bands along top and bottom of spine and front board, an irrelevant spray of flowers on the front and lettering in gilt on spine and front. The edges of the boards are bevelled and all edges of the text block are gilded, the endpapers are a grey floral pattern. There is wear to tips, the hinges have short splits, the front inner hinge has been taped. Au$400

The Rev Carey was a missionary in Fiji from 1859 to 1875. He was there, as he says, at a unique time, when many natives had learnt to read and write but before the first-hand connection to pre-missionary Fiji was severed, and Carey took advantage of this. He collected, offering prizes, written accounts by natives of Fijian history, myths and customs and has used them here to construct what he describes as something of a Fijian Hiawatha - though comparisons with Tennyson's workings of Arthurian legend may also be valid. The poem is a history of some 130 years of Fijian history, from the first appearance of whites, interspersed with myth, "manners and customs of the people, with words of wisdom from their sages." The hero is Fiji's great king Seru or Thakombau (Cacobou).
Loose inside is a broadside (340x220mm) puff for the book which quotes press opinions. The only modern notice of the work that I have seen is Morris Miller's observation that this poem is "one of the longest written by an Australian author."

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BREASTED, James Henry. The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, published in facsimile and hieroglyphic transliteration with translation and commentary ... University of Chicago 1930. Two volumes, quarto text & folio plates (spines a bit mottled); I: xxiv,596pp & eight plates. II: xvipp & 44 plates (a couple folding) being the facsimile with facing hieroglyphic transliteration printed in red and black. Au$375

First edition; there is a nasty facsimile of the text volume. Still the starting point for just about every branch of medicine.

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TAUT, Bruno. アルプス建築 [Arupusu Kenchiku] Alpine Architektur. Hagen, Folkwang 1919 [ie Tokyo, 1944]. 36x26cm publisher's flexible cloth and dustwrapper; title page in Japanese and 37 leaves consisting of 29 monochrome mounted leaves (title and contents leaves, five section titles and 22 plates) and eight colour lithographs. Covers chewed around the edges and along the spine, dustwrapper torn but pretty much all there. Usual browning of the uncoloured leaves. With the booklet containing the Japanese translation. Au$700

This might be the most curious Japanese book on western architecture. It's officially part of the collected works of Taut in Japanese (Tauto Zenshu) but while his other works were translated and collected into four solid sensible octavo volumes, here the original has been followed faithfully, lavishly. A translation was provided as an inserted booklet.
It has been sorted out thanks to the generous diligence of a librarian at the Art Institute of Chicago (the only library I could trace that had both versions) who, twice, compared them side by side and sent me a list of seven plates that vary in image size, that this isn't a re-issue of original sheets - once a common claim. So this is no photographic process reprint; the colour plates are proper colour lithographs that match the originals. While there's no doubt that elaborate and fine printing could be and was done in war time it still doesn't make sense. The flimsy translation booklet is what we expect from wartime printing - why not do a better job with that? The binding is war time, the printing is not.
So when were these plates produced? Were they prepared with Taut when he was in Japan - by 1936? The whole business of a collected edition of Taut in the middle of the war becomes something of a circular puzzle. Japan's ties with Germany are clear enough and the Japanese showed their appreciation of radical German modernists, or expressionists, like Taut and Mendelsohn pretty much even before Germany did, and Taut had spent years in Japan. But he was part of the exodus from Germany in 1933 and had died in Turkey in 1938. Still, a devoted band of fans did manage what seems unimaginable and got the job done.
Visionary, the term mostly used to describe this book, is often just another word for lunatic and Taut's utopian scheme for these monumental crystal structures marching across the mountain ranges of the world is captivatingly nutty. If this were to be judged on its own we would have just another eccentric, if endearing, relic of a dead end dream. But, in place in a cohesive group of theoretical writing and extensive design, both built and unbuilt, possible and impossible, this book wielded influence beyond its limited circulation in advancing the notion that, for the architect, principle, theory and social concern were tools as important as a T-square.

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Printing. 印刷大鑑 [Insatsu Taikan]. Osaka, Nihon Insatsu Kaisha 1915 (Taisho 4). Folio (39x27cm) publisher's patterned silk over bevelled boards with cord ties (silk worn through at the corners); 12 preliminary leaves including two colour plates and a preface in French, 96 specimen leaves by different printers on different papers is a variety of techniques: chromolithography, four colour process, photo engraving, gravure, embossing, etc, with two plates on metal sheets; 11 more leaves at the end including a couple of plates. Minor adhesion with a couple of the chromolithos, causing a tear on the facing leaf of one. Inner hinges have cracked at some time and repaired not so neatly. Au$1300

A luxurious bit of showing off by the Japanese printing industry announcing that they have done their apprenticeship with western printers and now match them in skill. Fine printing, book work, advertising ... some kitsch and some very smart.
I now discover this exists in at least three states: one with silk covers and 101 specimens, this one with silk covers and 96 specimens, and one with mock silk printed boards with fewer preliminaries and 86 specimens. I presume this changed as specimens ran out. I've also realised that the cord ties are decorative: they are fastened under the endpapers in each cover and don't go through the book. Why I didn't notice this before ... I hang my head in shame.
For such a grand book this was not distributed as widely as you might expect. Worldcat finds five copies, all following the same catalogue entry dated 1916. I know that the two Australian copies are bound in silk and are dated 1915 and one US copy is the printed cover version; I don't know what the other two US copies are. CiNii finds five copies in Japanese libraries, and my searches of specialist libraries found no more.

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Fingerprints and destiny

Hasegawa Toho. 指紋と運命 [Shimon to Unmei]. Tokyo, Ars 1933 (Showa 8). 20x14cm publisher's cloth with mounted photo (spine browned), printed card slipcase. Small illustrations throughout. The photo on the front cover is a photographically printed enlargement of a fingerprint. Discrete stamp of the newspaper Hochi Shimbun, now a sporting paper. Au$200

First edition of this study of fingerprints and destiny (the title translated) with extras: the envelope with 19 illustrations of hands and handprints which was included loose in a 1934 book on palmistry; two pairs (left and right on each) of handprints in blue ink; and the business card of Inagaki Tobari. I'll presume the handprints are his. They are the same hands, one pressed lightly, the other pressed hard against the paper.
Hasegawa published a couple of books on fingerprints which were translated into Chinese and reprinted quite recently. Remember these are fingerprints, none of that palmistry nonsense.

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LANDTMAN, Gunnar. Ethnographical Collection from the Kiwai District of British New Guinea in the National Museum of Finland ... a descriptive survey of the material culture of the Kiwai people. Helsinki, Antell Collection 1933. Largish quarto publisher's printed wrapper (a little faded); 146pp, numerous photo illustrations and line drawings. An excellent copy. Au$185

The collection was gathered by Landtman in Papua from 1910 to 1912.

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Fashion. モード Mode : Coats. Tokyo, Modosha 1934 (Showa 9). 31x11cm publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; 32pp including wrappers; illustrated throughout, six pages colour on heavier paper, each with the pattern on the back. Titled in Japanese if you start at the right end and in English if you start at the wrong end but paginated from the western end. Signs of use. Au$175

Mode looks to be taken direct from a Paris journal but I haven't found an exact match. There were a lot of them. Since these models' legs look to be about shoulder height for an average Japanese woman it's hard to see these coats translated into Japanese. But the days of Meiji women looking uncomfortable and frumpish in western frocks were long gone. Come to that, the average height of a French woman wasn't much more and, come to that, high fashion is not meant for the average person.

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Nurses. 記念写真帖 : 日本赤十字社 香川県 支部病院 1918. [Kinen Shashin Jo : Nihonsekijujisha Kagawa Shibu Byoin]. Takamatsu, Japanese Red Cross Society 1918 (Taisho 7]. 15x23cm publisher's colour printed wrapper, thread tied (one broken); 23 photo plates on 23 leaves, three pages of text and colophon leaf (ie 26 leaves). A bit used. Au$125

The nurses of Kagawa Prefecture Branch Hospital at work and at play towards the end of the work. It's hard to tell the difference between work and play but sober kimonos neatly arrayed around kotos must be play.

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