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.
Sydney Harbour Bridge. A Symphony in Steel - 100 Photographs of the Sydney Harbour Bridge ... Arranged as a Flickascope. Flick the pages from back to front SEE IT GROW. Sydney, C. Grahame 1932. 8x11cm publisher's illustrated wrapper; 12pp of text, folding elevation and 100 photo plates printed on rectos. A rather good copy. Au$950
A fabulous little thing. The photographs are by the Desmond Woolley Studios, art work by Charles Harte, and the text gives some "interesting facts .. kindly supplied .. by Dorman Long".
I would claim this to be the best and rarest Sydney Harbour Bridge book of all but that it comes with the wreck of an even smaller flick book I've never seen before. This consists of 83 - probably of 84 - numbered leaves 7x7cm (leaves 1 and 83 detached) which show the bridge as an elevation being built. Leaf 83, the last here, has the still incomplete date '193 ' - following '1' and '19' - so I guess 84 with '1932' is needed. Plus whatever cover it had.
WIRGMAN, Thomas. A Complete and Permanent Science of Morals, Founded on Transcendental Philosopy. [or the drop title: Moral philosophy reduced to a complete and permanent science on the principles of transcendental philosophy, as contained in Kant's "Critic of Practical Reason."] n.p. [London 1817] Quarto original wrapper titled in gilt with printed label; printed on the back; title leaf, pp763-784 and separately printed index leaf numbered 785, four hand coloured plates.
A presentation from Wirgman inscribed to Wm Constable Esqre on the front wrapper and annotated throughout as a guide to the reader. Au$650
This a separate printing of Wirgman's article on Kant's moral philosophy in Encyclopaedia Londinensis - a perfect example of enthusiasm on it's way to being mania. Wirgman did four articles altogether covering the array of Kant and these could be bought from him coloured or uncoloured. He then went on to write and publish a formidable line of Kantesian solutions to everything. Along the way he spent the fortune he had made as a goldsmith. As John Timbs - retailer of dusty gossip - described him, "the eccentric Thomas Wirgman, the Kantesian, as a goldsmith and jeweller, made a considerable fortune, which he squandered as a regenerating philosopher."
Wirgman was introduced to Kant by Friedrich Nitsch in the 1790s along with Godwin, Henry Richter and Coleridge. Unlike fellow traveller Coleridge, Wirgman didn't run for cover confronted with the indifference or hostility to German philosophy in England. It may have been exactly Wirgman that made Coleridge write "I am no Zealot or Bigot for German Philosophy" to a friend at the same time he wanted to found a German library - just not called German - in London.
As said, Wirgman, advertised these for sale but this is a special presentation copy exhaustively made easy to navigate by numerous captions and pointers. William Constable is a too common name to place but there was a Scottish goldsmith William Constable at work around that time.
MARSHALL, Alfred. Principles of Economics. Vol I. [all published]. London, Macmillan 1891. Octavo contemporary gilt calf (tips and hinges rubbed) with the gilt crest of Melbourne University on the front. Quite a handsome copy, destined to be a prize but never awarded. Au$650
Second edition, with moderate revisions and additions.
ASHWORTH, T.R. & H.P.C. Proportional Representation Applied to Party Government. A new electoral system. Melbourne &c, Robertson 1900. Octavo publisher's cloth (spine top worn); viii,223pp.
With a 1933 presentation inscription from barrister, academic and momentary politician Richard Windeyer. Au$90
First edition. A new idea in Australian politics, proportional representation here does not mean what it now means to us but this is the germ of a new and theoretically fairer electoral system, as long as two parties are institutionally supported and minorities (such as the unions) are not allowed untrammelled access to parliament.
This was published for the first Commonwealth election. Thomas Ramsden Ashworth stood unsuccessfully for that first parliament in 1901 and while he continued to work for constitutional reform, taking part in the 1927 constitutional reform commission, he did not publish anything else this substantial. It is his only sustained publication (he published a lot in newspapers and in pamphlet form later in life) and most of this book seems to have been his work. His brother doesn't seem to have published anything else.
An architect by trade and an anti-labourite by profession, T.R. Ashworth was one of the most strident and effective Australian anti-communist propagandists pre-WWII, taking his lessons from the most reactionary American societies - and the American mistake of unchecked immigration.
Snowy Mountains Scheme. Report of the Snowy River Investigation Committee on the Utilization of the Waters of the Snowy River 1944. Sydney, Govt Printer 1945. Foolscap folio printed wrapper; 144pp & 24 folding plates, maps, charts, photo illustrations. A very good copy. Au$150
The first comprehensive investigation into all the proposals and the first to have some result. The war precluded any real start but this did spark communication between the federal and state governments and work began on Australia's biggest building project in 1949.
SAARINEN, Eliel. Munksnas-Haga och Stor-Helsingfors - Stadsplansstudier och forslag. Helsinki, Lilius & Hertzberg 1915. Quarto publisher's wrapper with mounted colour illustration; [6],163pp, photo illustrations, plans and drawings, 10 folding colour plans. Signs of use, some creasing of the long plans. Au$650
Even without skipping by the monumental grandeur at the official centre of Saarinen's almost winning design for Canberra you can easily recognise the same hand in his plan for Munkkiniemi and Haaga on the outskirts of Helsinki. Saarinen worked on this from 1910 so the two projects overlap.
This, Saarinen's first book - published in Swedish and Finnish versions - is divided between a survey of planning with particular attention to Unwin and the garden city, Helsinki, and this scheme, presented with a five metre long model made by his wife Loja in 1915. Photographic aerial views in the book are of the model.
His client was land developer M.G. Stenius - a company whose wealth was built on gardens appropriately enough. Not a lot of this scheme was built but the first stages were built to his revised plans with one street of - then an innovation too radical for Finland - Saarinen's row houses. Probably a better batting average than Griffin's with Canberra.
ZENKER, Rudolf. Farbiger Decken- und Wandschmuck im Geiste Fruhgermanischer Kunst Plauen, Stoll [190-?]. Folio (48cm) publisher gilt decorated portfolio (somewhat knocked about but solid); two preliminary leaves including title; 22 chromolithograph plates. Signs of use, one plate trimmed and repaired along the top edge; a perfectly decent copy. Au$750
A handsome pattern book of designs for interior colour schemes and elaborate decoration with an avowedly nationalist spirit looking for inspiration in a distant past. So who can resist pointing out the remarkable similarities between some of Zenker's designs and those of Maoris?
Zenker was a Plauen based designer and painter whose Germanic pride led to his most reproduced work being the medieval pageantry of a Nazi warrior of 1939.
[HARRIS, Alexander]. The Emigrant Family: or, The Story of an Australian Settler. London, Smith Elder 1849. Stout octavo, the three volumes bound together in contemporary quarter calf and cloth. An occasional spot but a pretty good copy in what looks like a colonial binding (plain and a bit awkward); bound without half titles. Au$850
First edition of this well meaning but somewhat documentary novel.
LANG, John. Botany Bay. London, William Tegg 1859. Octavo publisher's orange cloth printed in black (rather grubby and faded, spine shabby but solid). Definitely second hand and still most acceptable. With John Lane Mullins' gift bookplate to St Sophia's Library. The cover is dated 1860 as is Mitchell's copy. Au$850
First edition of Lang's maybe most reprinted and best regarded book. "Thinly veiled" is the usual description for fiction that might be an insult to some readers so Lang's preface begs the pardon of his Australian audience for words unrelated to this book that saw him unpopular before his departure and assures us that he does not intend to be "sarcastic or insulting" in this book.
An old clipping claims that the same folk who bought up every copy they could of Mudie's Felonry of New South Wales and destroyed unacceptable pages did the same with this, making complete copies rare. As the first story isn't really true there's no reason to believe the second. I can't find any record of mutilated copies of this but I can't find many copies at all. Trove finds four locations and Worldcat adds the four standard libraries of Britain.
Chinese in Australia. Chinese Immigration to Western Australia. (Representation to Imperial Government by Members of Intercolonial Conference in Reference to.) [with] Remonstrance ... against the introduction of Chinese by the Government of Western Australia at the public expense ... Sydney, Govt Printer 1881. Foolscap disbound 4pp, last blank; 4pp, last with unrelated text. This second paper is from an appendix of a larger government report. Au$90
The gathered colonies including New Zealand at the conference aimed at producing unified legislation to keep out the Chinese are horrified to learn that Chinese immgrants are coming into Western Australia "at public expense".
Chinese in Australia. Chinese Immigration. (Further Correspondence.) Sydney, Govt Printer 1881. Foolscap disbound; 6pp, last page blank. Au$125
The Colonial Secretary in Hong Kong reassures his New South Wales counterpart - with supporting documents - that Hong Kong is not deporting criminals to Australia and that any that were bundled aboard ships before 1877 - there probably weren't many - were sent without official knowledge.
The rest entails Victoria and New South Wales agreeing that it's time to get all the colonies together to hammer out new Chinese Immigration restriction bills. New South Wales' unsuccessful 1879 restriction act is included.
Chinese in Australia - the Lambing Flat Riots. Lambing Flat. (Petition from Certain Inhabitants of Sydney RespectingAlleged Maltreatment of the Chinese.) [with] Lambing Flat. (Petition from Hu Foo, Kylong, and Other Chinamen.) [with] Lambing Flat. (Report from Gold Commissioner on Petition of Su San Sing Doh.) Sydney, Govt Printer March - May 1861. Three leaves foolscap, disbound; 2pp;2pp;1p respectively. Au$225
The basest level of claptrap about Lambing Flat I've come across was on a website called ironbark where a bad drawing of a beefcake gay St Ned slaying a Chinese dragon heads a reprint of Frank Clune's - or P.R. Stephensen's - drooling account of the riots. My amusement turned sour as I found that this rotted swill is still being churned over on other whites only websites.
That aside here we have a petition from 31 unnamed residents of Sydney protesting against the treatment of Chinese in general, on the goldfields and in particular at Lambing Flat. The petitioners point out that most of the ill treated Chinese are British subjects from Hong Kong, equal in law to any European Australians. Those that aren't from Hong Kong are "entitled by the laws of nature, of nations, and of religion" to protection.
The petition from Hu Foo and Other Chinamen - 43 in all - seeks compensation totalling near five thousand pounds for destruction of their property. In the last report here the Commissioner gets to work sorting out these pesky Chinamen. His detective established that Su Sang Sing Doh [sic] owned nothing like the stores he claimed were destroyed - "not five pounds worth" - and will be "most particular" in preventing "other Chinese from attempting to impose claims for which there may not be any foundation."
AUDSLEY, W. & G. [William & George]. Polychromatic Decoration as Applied to Buildings in the Mediaeval Styles. London, Sotheran, 1882. Folio publisher's gilt cloth (wear to tips); [8],32pp and 36 chromolitho plates interleaved with descriptive text. Light browning, quite a good copy. Au$450
Careful and plain descriptions and practical advice accompany the sometimes spectacular designs. A chart offers the colours and tints most suitable for decorative painting and patterns are grouped for specific wall areas and features. At the end are four plates of alphabets.
Catalogue - Garden Furniture. John P. White, Bedford. A Complete Catalogue of Garden Furniture and Garden Ornament. By John P. White, The Pyghtle Works, Bedford ... Xmas, 1906. Bedford 1906. Quarto publisher's printed wrapper (a missing piece from the back wrapper expertly replaced); 112pp illustrated in line and photo throughout. A couple of related flyers loosely inserted, quite a good copy. Au$875
From pots to bridges and greenhouses; an extensive range, essential for the chic but thoroughly English - ie Arts & Crafts - garden.
White made furniture designed by Baillie Scott and some of this stuff may well be his but the designs here are, with two exceptions, uncredited except by inference from a passing remark to White himself. The two credited are by The Hon. Mrs. Anstruther. You don't withold credit from someone like her. Many of the drawings are signed and while it isn't clear that the artist was also the designer those signed 'J.C.' are likely by James Crossland who designed furniture for White at about this time.
Ballarat. A small bundle of Ballarat ephemera from the 1860s. n.p. 1861-69. Twelve items various sizes printed and finished by hand. Most folded and a couple with small pieces torn away. Au$120
A varied lot: invitations to subscribe, mining company shares, bills of lading, a notice of a school moving. Those that are addressed are to Cameron Bros or to John Cowan.
THACKERAY, W.M. Sultan Stork and Other Stories and Sketches ... now first collected to which is added the bibliography of Thackeray .. London, Redway 1887. Octavo publisher's cloth. A nice copy. Au$50
First edition, collecting fugitive, forgotten or ignored pieces.
CLEGG, T.B. [Thomas Bailey]. The Wilderness. London & NY, John Lane 1907. Octavo publisher's cloth. Minor signs of use, a rather good copy. Au$200
Only edition of this uncommon melodramatic Australian thriller; apparently the American issue judging by the binding. We jump from the orphaned girl in imagined Golden City - a gold town grown into a city - to the embittered doctor playing with poisons and dissecting Kanakas in Queensland cane fields. But we know their fates cross somewhere soon. Given that Clegg was Ballarat born is it safe to presume it is the model for Golden City?
Clegg was a journalist, lawyer and magistrate who in the eighties had investigated the penal system in New Caledonia and the indentured labour industry in Queensland. New Caledonia found its way into his 'The Bishop's Scapegoat' (1908) and the cane fields into this.
BLACK, Archibald et al. American Airport Designs - containing 44 prize winning and other drawings from the Lehigh Airports Competition ... NY, for the Lehigh Portland Cement Company 1930. Quarto publisher's illustrated heavy wrapper (a stain on the front, later cloth spine); 96pp, mostly plates. A more than decent copy. Au$250
This is, I believe, the first American book on airport architecture, gathering designs submitted to the country's first such competition. The compiler is confident that there are plenty of new ideas never used in Europe and the schemes range from token crackpot visionary - a circular runway running around the tops of skyscrapers - to beaux-arts, with the bulk falling into classical moderne.
Common to all designs chosen for inclusion is a formal layout, with runways, often circular, that range from something like parterre gardens to complex occult symbols; surely evidence that a good beaux-arts education still prevailed. Two designs that have some flashy distinction are by Los Angeles and Florida architects, naturally, with a film set skyscraper and a modernist tower respectively. Both are condemned as unsafe.
Maybe interesting now would be tracking down the entries that didn't make the cut - neither Wright's nor Neutra's made the book.
Chicago. Rand, McNally & Co.'s Pictorial Guide to Chicago ... what to see and how to see it. NY, Rand McNally 1888. Octavo illustrated wrapper; 112pp including advertisements; illustrations and maps (one folding). A used but decent enough copy, complete with the large folding map at the end. This has a few tears but is all there. Au$150
Maybe the third edition? A few editions appeared between 1884 and 1893. The large map is dated 1889 which seems standard for this edition.
Tableau Abrege de l'Histoire des Voyages, ou fragments les plus curieux ... dans l'Asie, l'Afrique, l'Amerique et l'Oceanie. Paris, Charles Letaille [c1840]. Small octavo publisher's 'silk' paper boards with mounted handcoloured illustration on the front (some of the extra embossed gilt frame around this is missing; hinge and edges a bit scraped); 123pp and seven plates - tinted lithographs on light card which are cut to shape and mounted on tabs so they sit up from the page. A nice copy.
Number three in the series Simples Recits Dedies au Jeune Age. Au$1750
First edition of this beguiling little book; apparently there were three but none are easy to find. Even someone as unmoved by 19th century travel books as I am couldn't help but be charmed by this odd hybrid of educational text and toy book.
Public health, quarantine & sanitation. A collection of sixteen reports on vaccination, quarantine, disease and sanitation in Sydney. Sydney, Govt printer 1881-84. Foolscap, together in modern cloth. Signs of use, a few short tears, a couple of plans with repairs, minor but for the plan of the Little Bay Sanatorium (with report 12 - a revised version of that with report 6) which is in pieces but all there. Au$950
A modern binding but not a modern gathering: there is a contemporary handwritten list of contents at the front. This has every sign of being compiled by a body like the Board of Health. The Report of the Board on the small-pox epidemic has been extensively marked up and corrected by hand. Each of these is worth its own long maundering note, but.
All these papers come in some way out of the small-pox outbreak of 1881-82 and you may not be surprised that it become political real fast. It was a debacle. First among the blameworthy were the Chinese, blamed for introducing the disease, then rightly came the officials, disorganisation, unreadiness and general incompetence top to bottom.
The vaccination paper records the lengthy opinions of fifteen esteemed medicos and largely concerns small-pox - still the only vaccination there was. All but John Le Gay Brereton were in favour. He regarded vaccination an evil worse than disease.
Sixteen pages on schools versus 66 pages on wood pavements may seem unbalanced until you read the board's report and the evidence and realise that given how many roads were paved with wood it's a wonder that anyone was alive - not swept away by yellow fever. Thank heaven for Australian hardwoods.
The Fijian representative to the 1884 conference couldn't make it - the steamer bringing the invitation was placed in quarantine on arrival in Suva.
(1) Compulsory Vaccination. Opinions of ... ; 55pp;
(2) Report of the Royal Commission ... upon the management of the Quarantine Station, North Head, and the Hulk "Faraway"; (xiv),118pp;
(3) Second Report ... Quarantine Station ... ; 13pp and folding plan;
(4) Instructions to the Assistant Health Officer, stationed at Watson's Bay. 3pp;
(5) Quarantine Station, North Head. (Report of Health Officer upon state and conditions ... ; 14pp and five plans, three folding;
(6) Report of the Board of Health Upon the Late Epidemic of Small Pox, 1881-1882; 20pp and two large folding plans;
(7) Quarantining of Steamship "Gunga"; 52pp;
(8) Quarantine of Mail-Steamer "Rome" (Correspondence); 8pp;
(9) Board of Health (Attendance of Members of, and Subjects ... ; 2pp;
(10) Mortality on Board Immigrant Ships. (Report by Medical Officer ...); 2pp;
(11) Management of the Sydney Hospital (Report of Committee of Inquiry into Certain Complaints); 27pp;
(12) Hospital Accomodation and Position for the City of Sydney; 10pp and large folding plan;
(13) Report of Dr. Clark on the Sanitary Condition of the Public Schools in the City of Sydney, and Suburbs; 16pp;
(14) Wood Pavement Board. Report, minutes of proceedings, and appendix; 66pp;
(15) The Australasian Sanitary Conference of Sydney ... 1884. Report, minutes of proceedings, and appendix. 70pp and five large folding maps and plans;
(16) Ad Interim Report Upon Recent Cases of Small-Pox. 6pp.
LOW, R. Bruce Reports and Papers on Bubonic Plague, ... progress and diffusion of plague throughout the world, 1898-1901 ... measures employed in different countries for repression of this disease. London, HMSO 1902. Quarto, modern wrapper with printed title; xii,466pp, ten colour maps, some folding, numerous tables. Title page with some creases. Au$350
Historians of the plague have been busy in recent years and in browsing a few of them it becomes clear that Low's report is essential. The best admit that Low is the only source for some aspects of the flurry of epidemics that rushed round the world and the less than best copied Low wholesale only pausing to point out where they think he was wrong.
Australians can congratulate themselves that they weren't the only people to immediately fly into a yellow peril panic and blame the whole thing on the Chinese or some other coloured race. So did the South Africans and Americans in San Francisco and Honolulu. Elsewhere it was more pragmatic to deny that there was plague.
Trove finds two locations, both in Sydney.
PARSONS, H. Franklin. Report on Isolation Hospitals. London HMSO 1912. Quarto modern wrapper; damaged and repaired original printed wrapper preserved inside; vi,149pp, plans and sections (one folding). Library stamp on title page. Au$200
This got a good review in the Journal of the Royal Sanitary Institute and they were a tough audience. You only have to compare the length of discussion with that of any paper presented to the Institute to see that everyone had an amendment and recommendation to add, often more than one.
This is one of those architecture books that started at the other end: it is an inquiry into the cost of building an isolation hospital and sometimes, as pointed out in the preface, the cost can be extravagant due to the inexperience of the architect.
Is it an accident that the plan of the Beddington Corner hospital has been turned 90 degrees clockwise from due north and made a large folding plate?
PEIRCE, Benjamin. Ideality and the Physical Sciences. Boston, Little Brown 1881. Octavo publisher's cloth; 211pp, portrait. With Joseph Gleason's bookplate; so, a small number on the back of the title and label removed from rear endpaper; still a rather good copy. Au$75
Six lectures delivered in 1879 and just about Peirce's last work. Three he prepared for publication but the others he preferred to keep until he'd "worked out more fully the form of the meteoric theory .. and its relation to the nebular theory." (preface). His son has prepared them for publication and added an appendix.
Superhero comic. Bulb Magic! NY, Custom Comics for the Associated Bulb Growers of Holland [1956]. 19x13cm publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; 16pp; comic strip in colour. Au$30
Forget Captain America and Superman. What did they ever do for the American suburb? We lose little time in exposition: on page one Tom and Bob meet on the homeward bound 5.04 and Bob is flummoxed to find Tom has sold his house at asking price while he, Bob, hasn't had a nibble for his, the same model. Not entirely the same, Tom explains, his bulb plantings "sure did increase the value!" So we learn how bulbs produced a colorful miracle for Tom and can do the same for us. Did Batman ever increase your property value?
Worldcat finds two copies but one of those can't be verified.
Oscar Wilde. For the Love of the King A Burmese Masque by Oscar Wilde. London, Methuen 1922. Octavo, very good in publisher's white gilt cloth (a bit tanned). Edition of 1000 copies on handmade paper. Au$90
First edition of the Chan Toon fake. I've forgotten who Mrs Chan Toon actually was but from this distance it's hard to see how E.V. Lucas, or anyone, actually took her or the crude forgeries at face value, though Wilde himself gave her his imprimatur from beyond the grave in his 'Psychic Messages from Oscar Wilde' recorded by Hester Travers Smith in 1924.
Wilde bibliographer Christopher Millard (aka Stuart Mason) was successfully sued by Methuen for suggesting that Methuen had foisted this stuff on an unsuspecting public, with Lucas, Methuen's chairman, still - in 1926 - insisting from the box that he thought it genuine if inferior Wilde.
Trade Unions. A Reply to the Commonwealth Public Service Commissioner - from the South Australian Post and Telegraph Association. Adelaide, Daily Herald Printers, July 1911. Octavo publisher's printed wrapper; 61pp. Mildly used. Stamp of the Tamanian P & T Association and inscription of the secretary. Au$75
A trenchant rejoinder traversed with vigorous candor according to the Adelaide Daily Herald in an article reviewing the dispute and this pamphlet. Being a white collar union dispute there doesn't seem to have beeen any blood shed in this battle for just recompence for postmasters and telegraphists but the verbal violence is strenuous: "Machiavellian ... false note ... evasion ... wholesale slander ... confidence trick ... faking ... " I can't find this in Trove.
NEWTON, Isaac. The Correspondence of Isaac Newton edited by H.W. Turnbull [& others]. Cambridge University Press for the Royal Society 1959-77. Seven volumes quarto publisher's cloth; plates in each. A very good set but for volume five. This has been damp affected but is solid and useful. Au$200 including post within Australia.
Atom Bomb. America Russia and the Bomb. National Council Against Conscription, Washington DC, June 1950. Octavo printed wrapper (bit marked); 72pp, illustrations through the text; roneo slip loosely inserted. Au$30
"Here is the authoritative booklet on disarmament for which you have been waiting." (from the slip). A high powered committee of contributors, or at least signers, including Albert Einstein.
解放 : 民主統一戰線のための戰鬪的大衆誌 [Kaiho : minshu toitsu sensen no tameno sentoteki taishushi]. Tokyo, Kaihosha, March 1946. Octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper; 96pp, b/w illustrations. A bit rumpled, less than expected browning of the cheap paper; quite a good copy. Au$300
No. 1 and all published of this troublemaking red magazine that carried the title in English: 'The Emancipaton [sic] (The Kaiho) The Combative Enlightening Magazine for Promoting the Victory of the Peoples Front.'
After some tight and dangerous years Japan's communists - those not killed or disgraced by their apostasy from prison - could come out from under their beds but American occupied Japan was no welcome red resort. This early and abrupt bit of red defiance appeared in time for the April 1946 general election in which the communist party won six seats and the socialists a healthy 96 seats. The socialists even formed government for a brief heady period.
During the war and for a few minutes after, Japanese communists were seen as allies but this magazine is exactly the sort of thing that soured the friendship. Officially there was no censorship in occupied Japan but likewise, officially all those plutocrat war criminals were purged from government and business and prosecuted. The Civil Censorship Detachment of the occupying forces censored everything they could find.
Worldcat finds no copies of this and I find only the NDL copy.
IZIKOWITZ, Karl Gustav. Musical and Other Sound Instruments of the South American Indians. A comparative ethnographical study. Gothenburg, Elanders 1935. Large octavo publisher's printed wrapper; xii,433pp, 265 illustrations (from photos and drawings), three folding tables. A couple of small tears to wrapper edges but a sparkling copy. Au$100
[Hedin]. DE MARGERIE, Emmanuel. L'Oeuvre de Sven Hedin et L'Orographie du Tibet. Paris 1929. Octavo printed wrapper; 139pp, illustrations & maps (a couple folding). Au$75
Extrait du Bulletin .. de Geographie.
SCHIMMELPENNINCK, Mary Anne. Theory on the Classification of Beauty and Deformity, and their correspondence with physiognomic expression, exemplified in various works of art, and natural objects ... London, for J. & A. Arch 1815. Quarto contemporary half calf (a bit rubbed); xviii,441pp, two folding tables (the title calls for four and two of these are in the text) and 38 plates with hand colouring. Corner clipped from the half title; a pleasing, fresh copy. Au$2750
First edition; a re-written, pedestrian and more pious version was published after her death, in 1859. Mrs Schimmelpenninck offers a complete theory of taste rather than a work on physiognomy. Indeed much of the planned physiognomic section has been deferred. The theory here will "furnish a systematically arranged classification [and] fixed and definite rules .. of useful application not only in painting, sculpture, architecture, landscape gardening, poetry, .. but likewise .. in all those minor departments of good taste which constitute the agreeable everyday scenery of life".
This theory seems to have been evolving since her childhood and is supported by copious notes and quotations on Chinese gardens, Peruvians, catacombs, sweating sickness, and much more. She investigates the association of ideas, vision, form and motion, colour, hearing, touch, taste and smell, and the two large charts epitomise the whole theory. The plates are mostly soft ground etchings against strong wash backgrounds within a variety of borders.
Mrs Schimmelpenninck was too young to be one of the original bluestockings but she was very much their daughter; no social revolutionary but a pamphleteer for abolition and an historian of the Jansenists despite her quaker upbringing. This is her most ambitious and most singular work, it is singular enough in any context, but was no great success: "It was the opinion of some competent judges that this work showed more of her original talent and genius than any other of her published writings but it did not prove popular. It was encumbered by most voluminous notes containing a mass of information not likely perhaps to be generally interesting though testifying abundantly to the author's rare and extensive literary research." (Life of Mary Anne Schimmelpenninck; Christiana C. Hankin, 1858).
NEURATH, Otto. Modern Man in the Making. London, Secker & Warburg 1939. Quarto, publisher's cloth and dustwrapper (this with a couple of small holes and chips); colour and b/w Isotype illustrations throughout. Top of the text block sometime bumped which, in the wrong light, detracts a bit from what would be an outstanding copy. Au$600
First English edition - or first edition, English issue if you like - of what must be Neurath's most desirable book which, as Lancelot Hogbin said, "combines all that is best in Descartes and the Daily Mirror." So many attempts to help humanity take a great evolutionary step forward vanish without trace but the descendants of Isotype, the universal graphic language created by the Neuraths and Gerd Arntz, have become ubiquitous, telling us when to cross the street and where to piss.
DALE, George. The Industrial History of Broken Hill. Melbourne, Fraser and Jenkinson 1918. Octavo publisher's wrapper; 268pp, photo illustrations and adverts. Some natural browning but a very good copy. Au$120
"This work should become the text-book of agitators" (preface). The advertising, which has made publication possible, is a roughly equal mix of brewers and local firms who spell out their allegiance to the workers of 'The Barrier'.
NISBET, Alexander. An Essay on the Ancient and Modern Use of Armories; Shewing Their Origin, Definition, and Division of them into their several Species ... Edinburgh, Printed by William Adams Junior 1718. Small quarto modern half calf; viii,224,[16]pp and seven engraved plates. General browning but still a fresh copy. Au$200
Poor Nisbet, he'd spent most of his adult life trying to raise funds for his great "complete System of Herauldry" in folio and managed by 1718 but two small works, his 'Cadency' of 1702 and this. Apparently this was so well regarded that his 'System' in folio appeared in 1722 but was to him incomplete and he set about raising support for a second volume. He died in 1725 and in 1742 a second volume appeared under his name, ostensibly prepared from his manuscript.
This manuscript was forged claptrap and Nisbet became, post mortem, a figure of ridicule and pity among the heraldic community for the next century or so.
Barque "Norna." (Correspondence relative to). [with] ... Further Correspondence. Sydney, Govt printer 1861. Foolscap disbound; 6pp and 1 page on blue paper. Au$35
A sordid story of the treatment of Lascar seamen and, to me, surprising use of authority. Seems if a ship's officer complains to the Water Police that his crew are refusing to obey orders said crew is rounded up and thrown into gaol. The Norna's crew were arrested on the charge of Captain Crawford. The Water Police Magistrate's account here is more defensive than clear but it emerges after much to and froing that one seaman had possibly been murdered at sea and another came close to death in Sydney, due to mistreatment by the captain and second officer. They were held and charged. Then, the near dead sailor was put back on board the Norna, told that sea voyage would be good for his health and the Norna set sail with a new captain.
Probably not a great decision: the Norna was wrecked somewhere round the Coral Sea and most of the crew pretty much marooned by the new captain. But that's another story.
FARJEON, B.L. [Benjamin Leopold]. Grif. A story of Australian Life. Seventeenth edition. London, Hutchinson 1898. Octavo publisher's cloth, spine decorated in gilt. A little browning at the very ends, quite a nice copy. Inscribed and signed by Farjeon with an accompanying letter. Au$350
A gift from Farjeon to Mrs Granville Ellis in 1901. The short letter on Farjeon's letterhead explains that it isn't always easy to find spare copies of his books but he is sending three, including this one, and Harry - doubtless Farjeon's son - is sending along some sheet music just published. Mrs Ellis must be the American born journalist, Anna May (or Mai?) Bosler, who married Granville Ellis twice and wrote under the name Max Eliot. Elizabeth Pennell described her as "that awful American newspaper woman ... a vile specimen! Vulgar!"
Gifted copies of Farjeon's books have a longer history than Farjeon himself. Decades later Harry used his father's own copies as school prizes.
HALL, Owen. [ie Hugh Hart Lusk]. Eureka. London, Chatto & Windus 1899. Octavo publisher's green decorated cloth blocked in blind. A second hand copy with something of a lean, with some browning and smudges; an unmarked lending library label inside the front cover suggests no-one ever borrowed it. No other library marks; a solid decent copy. Au$2000
Only edition, probable first issue. I've seen another copy in a cheaper binding with a 32 page publisher's list that include's Hall's next book, Hernando, published in 1902. A pioneering Australian science fiction novel say some and rare say I: missed by Miller and MacCartney and Trove finds only the NL copy. It was picked up by the Bibliography of Australian Literature which cites the British Library copy.
This is a lost race thriller with enough techno-wizardry to qualify as sci-fi proper and with an ancient Greek civilisation in Western Australia.
Lusk did spend time in Australia and wrote a couple of Australian novels, along with a fair bit of social and political commentary, but perhaps belongs more to New Zealand. There he went into politics during the seventies then came to Australia in the 1890's. Did he go back to New Zealand afterwards (apparently he died in Auckland) or go on to America where he published quite a bit of stuff under his own name? He was a busy writer, a few novels and much polemic and pamphleteering - and much of that was pretty reactionary and xenophobic.
THOMAS, Edward A. At Swords' Point. A novel. Philadelphia, Claxton &c, 1877. Octavo publisher's green cloth. A bit of browning at the ends, minor signs of use; a rather good copy. Au$250
First edition of this scarce thriller that begins with a desperate chase and gets complicated soon. A villain is accused of murder and our hero, a young lawyer, is happy to prosecute him ... until he looks at the evidence.
HUME, Fergus. The Dwarf's Chamber. London, Ward Lock [189-?]. Octavo publisher's colour illustrated glazed boards with cloth spine (this a touch faded); illustrations by Percy F.S. Spence and others. The title page - on cheaper paper - a bit browned, a bit of a lean, a little wear to corners and edges, a rather good copy. Au$185
A re-issue of the original 1896 sheets with a cancel title page and part of the appealing Ward Lock 2/- Copyright Novels series. This is the copy illustrated in John Loder's survey of the 2/- series.
This is sort of intriguing as an exercise in marketing. The "other stories" - ie The Dwarf's Chamber and Other Stories as it was first titled - have been dumped - from the title, not the book. Perhaps a glut of short story collections on the market. The Dwarf's Chamber is the longest by far piece in the book but there are some other useful titles in there: Dead Man's Diamonds - too many diamonds in the thriller market ... Tale of the Turquoise Skull - too obvious a short story ... the Green-Eyed God and the Stockbroker - again too obvious as is the Ivory Leg and the Twenty-Four Diamonds - and there's diamonds again.
TURNER, George Frederic. The Toad and the Amazon. London, Ward Lock 1907. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in white and gilt (minor signs of use, a little white gone from the spine); frontispiece and one other plate. A pretty good copy. Au$250
First edition. I'm not sure why Turner's books have disappeared so thoroughly. The style is a bit precious but no more than most of his contemporaries and the repartee is often witty and amusing. The necessary conceit - or gimmick - to keep us reading: a pair of society gentlefolk disguise themselves to follow their passion - boxing - might seem ordinary until we discover that one is a beautiful young woman.
In case our interest flags, cut to the meeting of the high society Entomophagites where the abolition of section C of Rule 15 is being argued. Section C is the requirement that any outsider who stumbles over or into the Entomophagites is summarily executed. Needless, maybe, to say, our hero is going to be lured into blundering into the Entomophagite stronghold by his rival for the beautiful Amazon.
Turner, a London architect, published a decent number of novels between 1906 and 1920, most with some thrilling or macabre twist, and all apparently sank with barely a ripple.
FARJEON, B.L. [Benjamin Leopold]. Something Occurred. [and] Something Occurred. Third edition. London, Routledge 1894. Two volumes colour illustrated glazed boards; the first with wear to edges and quite good the other more rubbed and worn about the edges. The first with 331pp and adverts dated July 1894; the second with 328pp on noticeably cheaper paper and adverts dated August 1896. Au$250
I want to make it clear that this is not my discovery, the work here was done by Rowan Gibbs. Now. The first copy here is, I believe, first edition - 1893 - sheets with a cancel title. There our interest might end except the next copy - the 'third edition' is revised and reset. The revisions aren't dramatic as far as I can see but they are there. That a publisher would take this on for a yellowback reprint is a surprise to me.
Something Occurred is a light fantasy involving magical snuff which owes more than a bit to the identity exchange and transformation novels of F. Anstey.
ASTOR, John Jacob. A Journey in Other Worlds. A romance of the future. London, Longman 1894. Octavo publisher's blue cloth elaborately blocked in silver and lettered in gilt; 10 illustrations, nine by Dan Beard; 24 page publisher's list dated September 1894 at the end. Edges a bit rubbed and the title page a bit browned. Quite a good copy. Au$125
First English edition, pretty much concurrent with the New York edition. William Waldorf Astor has been described as the richest novelist ever and without knowing the breakdown of the family fortunes I can't argue that, but John Jacob may well be the richest science fiction writer still.
William's pair of novels were no great shakes and neither is this in literary terms. But it is a scientific and utopian romance involving a voyage to Jupiter and Saturn, no worse than most of the didactic science fiction of the period and does provide enough thrills and plenty of monsters. It is set in the year 2000 and Astor's vision of world history over the intervening century can be, with equal or no profit, admired or derided.
Astor was caned by the New York Times reviewer - affronted by his view that time wasted learning the classics would be better spent learning science - who remarked that Astor's description of a "weird scene might also serve in a description of a Dutch Christmas festival."
Librarians ... to your edit modes!
SHEHADI, B. [Beshara]. The Confession of Pontius Pilate. First written, as alleged, in Latin by Fabricius Albinus, a playmate of Pilate; translated into Arabic ... and rendered into English ... by B. Shehadi, ... now of Sydney, N.S.W. Sydney, printed by Geo. Booth 1893. Small octavo publisher's printed wrapper; 64pp. Some foxing but a nice copy. At the end Shehadi advertises Arabic lessons. Au$385
First edition of this biblical fantasia and neglected bit of Australian fiction. I first supposed that B. Shehadi, lately student of Beyrout, was as much an invention as Fabricius Albinus but it seems not. He was, according to an online family history, born in Syria - now Lebanon - in 1871, came to Australia in 1891 and left in 1898. Not mentioned in the family history is that Shehadi ran into some police trouble in June 1898. He ended up a carpet dealer in Orange, New Jersey where he died in 1955. In the meantime he published second, third and fourth editions of this, in 1917, 1943 and 1954.
This is not unknown to bibliographers but apparently once miscatalogued it has stayed there ever since. All Trove library entries list this as the work of Albinus. Ferguson, who ignored fiction, included it while Miller and Macartney never included it in Australian Literature. It remains a gap in Austlit.
The fictional histories created by authors attempting to pass off a novel as fact are usually picked up immediately but I guess when it comes to stuff biblical, eyes cross and it is put onto an apocrypha shelf in the dark wastes of theology. So. Here we have a Syrian/Lebanese colonial Australian novel. How many of those have you seen?
Roman republic of 1849. Rome en 1849 [binding title for a collection of seven items]. 1. Actes Officiels de la Republique Romaine depuis le 9 Fevrier jusqu'au 2 Juillet 1849. Paris, Amyot [1849]; 195pp. 2. de Lesseps, Ferdinand. Ma Mission a Rome Mai 1849. Paris, Amyot 1849; 168pp. 3. Reponse de M. F. de Lesseps au Ministere et au Conseil d'Etat. Aout 1849. Paris, Amyot 1849; 38,[2]pp. 4. Cernuschi (Henri August Primus) Representant du Peuple Romain juge par le Conseil de Guerre de L'Armee Francaise a Rome 1850. Paris, printed by Briere; pp3-22, drop title. 5. Rome a la France. Revelations sur la question Romaine, par un constituant de Rome recueilles et publiees par S.-F. Bernard. folio newsheet; 8pp. 6. Supplement au Censeur du Dimanche 12 Aout 1849. Discours de M. Jules Favre sur les affaires de Rome. Lyon; folio newsheet; 4pp. 7. Supplement au Censeur du Samedi 29 Septembre 1849. J. Mazzini a MM. Tocqueville et Falloux. Lyon; folio newsheet; 2pp. v.p. Together in octavo contemporary half morocco (the three newsheets folded in). Bookplate of Joseph Gleason with consequent minimal library markings (faint signs of a spine number). A typed contents list inserted. Au$300
I won't even try to summarise the history of the Republic of Rome in 1849 and its war with France. It's complicated.
Catalogue - wine. Establissements Nicolas. Liste des Grands Vins Fins 1932. Paris, Nicolas (printed by Draeger) [1932]. Small quarto publisher's colour illustrated wrapper, spiral bound, with oval peek-a-boo cutout; 32pp, eight full page colour illustrations, smaller decorations by Edy Legrand. Corner bumped. Au$80
The wine merchants of wine merchants, Nicolas, produced these catalogues of their great wines annually from 1927 to 1973. 1932 is neo-fauve bacchanalian with Legrand at his splodgiest.
Catalogue - wine. Establissements Nicolas. Liste des Grands Vins Fins 1935. Paris, Nicolas (printed by Draeger) [1935]. Small quarto publisher's stiff wrapper, plastic spiral binding; 36pp, six full page, smaller colour illustrations by Darcy. Corner bumped. Au$80
The wine merchants of wine merchants, Nicolas, produced these catalogues of their great wines annually from 1927 to 1973. 1935 is particularly high Deco with more than a hint of the epic grandeur of the working man.
Catalogue - wine. Establissements Nicolas. Liste des Grands Vins Fins 1936. Paris, Nicolas (printed by Draeger) [1936]. Small quarto publisher's colour illustrated wrapper, plastic spiral bound; 54pp including endpapers, some double folded leaves carry four page numbers, Design, decorations decorations and typography by Cassandre. Corner bumped. Au$110
The wine merchants of wine merchants, Nicolas, produced these catalogues of their great wines annually from 1927 to 1973. 1936 is more extensive and stately than its immediate neighbours.
London - Melbourne Air Race. Nederlands Succes. Melbourne Race. n.p. [1934?]. Colour lithograph on card 47x31cm, with a mounted colour illustration. Edges a bit knocked with a short tear in one corner; hanging strip or card stand on the back pretty much gone. Au$600
A shop placard for a new brand of cigars that celebrates the Dutch success in the Melbourne Centenary or MacRobertson Air Race. The Dutch KLM plane Uiver arrived second and won on handicap. The onlaid colour illustration is, I suppose, the cigar box label. I found a couple of adverts in newspapers dating into 1936 for Melbourne Race cigars but nothing else.
KIDD, B.J. A History of the Church to A.D.461. Oxford Univ Press 1922. Three volumes octavo publisher's cloth. Au$200
[MITCHELL, John Murray]. The Gospel According to St. John in English and Marathi. (The Marathi expressed in Roman characters.) Bombay, printed for the Bombay Auxiliary Bible Society at the Exchange Press, 1861. Octavo, doubtless original unlettered pebble cloth (marked and blotched but solid); 4,163pp & errata leaf. Small engraved monogram pasted on the title - an arrangement of the initials A.R.A.D. Au$165
Rare it seems. A search of likely catalogues finds only two copies, both in England. The second edition of 1882 is a touch more plentiful. Mitchell, as well as having a distinguished pedigree in translation and scholarly writings on India, was something of a missionary trouble shooter. He retired - first in 1863 - at least twice and was called back to India in times of crisis, only making his final departure from the place in 1888, fifty years after he first got there.
GOODHART, James Frederic. On Common Neuroses or the neurotic element in disease and its rational treatment. London, Lewis 1892. Octavo plain wrapper with folded parchment outer wrapper printed in red & black; 128pp. Spotting and some pencilling. Au$50
The Harveian Lectures for 1891.
RIGAUD, Stephen Peter. Account of Some Early Proposals for Steam Navigation. Oxford, for the Ashmolean Society 1838. Octavo publisher's printed wrapper; 15pp. Au$65
Some descriptions as early as the mid 16th century are noted with the more expected early 18th century proposals.
Monkey Game. Het Apenspel. n.p. [188-?]. 61x46cm colour litho game on paper. Edges a bit ragged and some repaired clean tears. Au$150
A Dutch racing game for devotees of monkeys - and who isn't? It seems counter intuitive these days but the object is to get into the zoo.
Catalogue - farm machinery. Weir Plow Co, Monmouth Ill. Plows, Cultivators, Harrows, Three-wheeled Riding, Tongueless, Single and Gang Plows ... etc., etc. The company [c1890]. Large octavo publisher's illustrated wrapper, 67pp, well illustrated. Unfortunately a mouse, my guess, nibbled the edge of this and stuck a few pages together which have been torn, without loss, by an over eager reader. Still a decent copy.
With two update leaves dated February and December 1891 pasted in at the end as instructed. And with the date stamp - 11 Jul 1891 - on the front of agent A.G. Webster & Son of Hobart. Au$50
A particularly handsome plow catalogue, and I don't say such things lightly, with two full page minor masterpieces of midwest wood engraving. Webster & Son - now Webster Ltd - went big in the 1880s publishing their own Tasmanian Agriculturist and Machinery Gazette and importing just about everything farm that there was.
Walpole & Strawberry Hill. A Catalogue of the Classic Contents of Strawberry Hill collected by Horace Walpole. London [George Robins 1842]. Quarto undistinguished modern cloth with original printed wrappers bound in; xxiv,250pp, portrait, illustrations through the prefatory pages. Somewhat used and dogeared but decent enough; and with a number of pencilled annotations and prices; inked onto the endpaper the totals for each day's sales. Au$300
The library and contents of Walpole's treasure house; the foundation of Gothick - not to be confused with the more prosaic gothic revival - sold by auction over 24 days. Included in the prefatory material is a description of Strawberry Hill by Harrison Ainsworth. This is the later and preferred - by bookists - version with days seven and eight (prints) deferred and the first six day's entries - the library - much improved in detail.
DUNCAN, Sinclair Thomson. Journal of a Voyage to Australia by the Cape of Good Hope. Six months in Melbourne and return to England by Cape Horn, including scenes and sayings on sea and land. Edinburgh, James Gemmell 1884. Octavo publisher's gilt cloth (rebacked with calf); 217,4pp, tinted frontis & folding map. A neat copy. Au$98
First published in 1869 and here "much enlarged, by adding more...strange and stirring scenes". Duncan seems a sanctimonious and patronising bore incapable of writing on anything with perception or intelligent discrimination. There is also something specious about his professed plan. Why would anybody, let alone a commercial traveller, sail right around the world stopping only in Melbourne, and for six months, merely with a view to self publish a journal? - the first edition was 'For the Author'.
Still, I am trying to sell this, so - a detailed account of his voyage and a view of Melbourne in the sixties of, I'm sure, interest to someone.
