Rare Books

  • # 46683

    BRIGHTWELL, L[eonard] R[obert] F.Z.S. (1889 - 1983)

    Wild Friends at Home (original cover art)

    Gouache on paper, measures 430 x 310mm, being the original painting illustrating the cover of E. Chivers Davies’ ‘Wild Friends at Home’ (London : 1920). In this volume a little boy enters the imaginary worlds of the wild animals whose pictures decorate the walls of his nursery. The fifteen short tales include his adventure with …

  • # 46388

    TASSO, Torquato [1544 - 1595]

    Jerusalem delivered : an heroic poem (large paper edition)

    Translated from the Italian of Torquato Tasso, by John Hoyle. London : printed by T. Bentley for J. Johnson [and others], 1803. Eighth edition. Two volumes, octavo, finely bound in full straight grained red Morocco, elaborate gilt tooled floral borders, spines in compartments with raised bands, lettered and tooled in gilt (slightly faded), edges a …

  • # 42884

    LANG, John Dunmore (1799-1878)

    An historical and statistical account of New South Wales, both as a penal settlement and as a British colony.

    London : Cochrane and M’Crone, 1834. First edition. Two volumes, octavo (190 x 125 mm), contemporary uniform calf, spines in compartments with gilt lettering and decoration; pastedowns with early ownership inscription of S. A. Cooper, Canterbury, Kent; Vol. 1. pp. xiv, 401, frontispiece folding engraved map with hand-coloured outlines; Vol. 2. pp. iv, 443; a …

  • # 42472

    Van Gulik, Robert (1910-1967)

    The given day : an Amsterdam mystery.

    Kuala Lumpur : Art Printing Works, 1964. First edition. Octavo, pictorial wrappers (canted, lightly marked, glue marks to gutters of endpapers); pp. 132, with illustrations by the author; a very good copy (without the production fault found in other copies on pp.21-30). Robert van Gulik (1910-1967) was a Dutch orientalist, diplomat, musician, and writer. He …

  • # 46820

    BESLEY, Richard Bradfield (1912-1990)

    Photograph album documenting experiences at a hydroelectric plant on the Swat River in Malakand District, Northwest Frontier Province, India, 1937-38.

    Small oblong quarto album (200 x 270 mm), original brown cloth over boards with string ties, containing 116 b/w photographs in corner mounts, 113 being in 60 x 60 mm format, with 3 in larger 115 x 160 mm format; the majority are captioned in ink below the image; very good condition throughout. This album …

  • # 46324

    BROPHY, Philip & CHESWORTH, David (co-ordinators)

    [MELBOURNE POST-PUNK] New Music 1980 number 4. Double issue.

    Northcote, Vic. : Philip Brophy & David Chesworth (funded by → ↑ →), 1980. Foolscap folio (300 x 210 mm), stapled pictorial wrappers (silverfished), 53 pp, illustrated; contents in very good condition. Very scarce original issue of Philip Brophy and David Chesworth’s serious magazine New Music (well, it’s definitely not a fanzine). Packed with interviews …

  • # 46546

    WOMEN'S THEATRE GROUP (Melbourne)

    Report for the Theatre Board of the Australian Council for the Arts, for Jan. to Jul. ’78, from Women’s Theatre Group, Melbourne.

    [Melbourne : Women’s Theatre Group, 1978]. Foolscap folio (330 x 220 mm), stapled self-wrappers, [10] pp, roneo-printed; very good condition. Provenance: From the estate of Virginia Fraser (1947-2021), feminist, artist, writer, editor and curator.

  • # 46600

    MALAYSIAN AIRLINE SYSTEMS

    This is our Malaysia

    Kuala Lumpur : Malaysian Airline Systems, circa 1975. Tourist brochure, DL size, printed in colour, pp. [12], folding central pages with map, includes features on Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Sabah, Sarawak, Malacca etc.

  • # 46595

    Bureau Officiel du Tourisme Indochinois

    French Indochina

    Saigon : Bureau Officiel du Tourisme Indochinois, circa 1930. Tourisme brochure, DL size, singe; sheet folded, pp. [8], illustrated, some light foxing and wear along folds, wet stamp for Cook’s travel agent in Shanghai to upper panel.

  • # 46667

    THOMPSON, Francis

    Shelley

    With an introduction by the Rt. Hobble. George Wyndham. London : Burne & Oates, 1909. Octavo, finely bound by Zaehnsdorf with their binder’s stamp in half crushed Morocco over marbled papered boards, spine in compartments with raised bands, ruled and lettered in gilt with ornamentation, edges faintly rubbed, top edge gilt, marbled endpapers, pp. 91, …

  • # 46593

    ATTENBOROUGH, David (1926 - )

    The private life of plants. A natural history of plant behaviour (signed copy)

    London : BBC Books, 1995. First edition. Octavo, boards in illustrated dustjacket, pp. 320, extensively illustrated. Signed by David Attenborough in blue pen on the half-title ‘David Attenborough’. A fine copy. The second work in the ‘Life’ series by popular naturalist and television broadcaster David Attenborough.

  • # 36315

    Anon.

    A man of Dakar, Senegal, holding guinea fowl and rifle. Circa 1840.

    Watercolour on laid paper with watermark of a royal horseman with lance, 200 x 146 mm (sheet); captioned in ink ‘Dackar’ (i.e. Dakar) at bottom left, and with a foliation number ‘114’ in the same hand at bottom right; the sheet is unmounted (verso blank), and the drawing has survived in fine condition – virtually in …

  • # 46750

    THE LONDON STEREOSCOPIC & PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY

    Studio portrait of Robert Moffatt, LMS missionary in Southern Africa. London, late 1860s.

    Albumen print photograph, carte de visite format, 102 x 63 mm (mount); recto of mount with printed signature of Robert Moffatt to lower margin; verso with the back mark of the London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company; both the print and the mount are in excellent condition. ‘Robert Moffatt (Ormiston, East Lothian, Scotland, December 21, 1795-Leigh, …

  • # 46586

    [Photographer unknown].

    View of Scott’s Hotel, Collins Street West, Melbourne, c.1880.

    Albumen print photograph, 155 x 205 mm, laid down recto of card mount (250 x 360 mm) removed from a nineteenth-century album, with a contemporary caption in ink below the image: ‘Melbourne. Scotts Hotel, Collins Street West’; no photographer’s imprint; a beautiful print with excellent tonal range, in fine condition; verso with a faded albumen …

  • # 46587

    [SINCLAIR, Henry Daniel 1818-1868] [Photographer unknown]

    Photograph of a portrait painting of Captain Henry Sinclair, explorer and founder of Port Denison (Bowen), Queensland.

    Gelatin silver print photograph, produced around 1900, of a portrait painting dating to around 1865; cabinet card format, 185 x 135 mm (mount); no photographer’s imprint; old pencil inscription verso identifies the subject as ‘Captain Sinclair, who discovered Port Denison’; 4cm tear lower left edge (not affecting the oval portrait itself), small loss at each …

  • # 46767

    THE LONDON STEREOSCOPIC & PHOTOGRAPHIC COMPANY

    Carte de visite commemorating Captain Edward Knowles and the emigrant ship “Northfleet”, lost in the English Channel on 22 January 1873 en route to Hobart, Tasmania.

    Albumen print photograph, 102 x 63 mm (mount); lower margin recto with printed caption: ‘Captain Knowles. Lost in the Northfleet off Dunganess, Jan. 22 1873’; verso with The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Company’s backmark; the print has a couple of light marks; the verso of the mount has some residual glue marks at the edges. …