Women Writers

  • Commonplace book compiled by a young Melbourne woman (1867-78) with later entries by her daughter (1889-1890).

    # 49803

    EMBLING, Sabina Howitt [&] SINGLETON, Violet Etta

    Commonplace book compiled by a young Melbourne woman (1867-78) with later entries by her daughter (1889-1890).

    An astonishing artefact of Melbourne social history, in which the intimate voices of two young women – a mother and daughter from one of the city’s most elite families of the second half of the nineteenth century – cry, whisper and sing from the pages, after having been lost to history for over 130 years. …

    Read more
    Reserved
  • "A Lady's Dressing Case"

    # 50544

    [MAKER UNKNOWN]

    “A Lady’s Dressing Case”

    [English, 1820-1840]. Handmade amusement. Single card sheet representing a lady’s vanity case, 190 x 230 mm, the recto covered in green paper, with manuscript title at head “A Lady’s Dressing Case”, the nine “drawers” below in the form of paper flaps with manuscript labels describing items associated with a lady’s toilet – in other words, …

    $750.00 AUD Read more
  • Brittany

    # 50545

    MENPES, Mortimer and Dorothy

    Brittany

    London : Adam & Charles Black, 1905. Quarto, gilt-lettered decorated cloth over bevelled boards (lightly marked, spine slightly dulled), top edge gilt, others uncut, endpapers lightly foxed, pp. x; 254, illustrated with 75 colour plates with captioned tissue guards, occasional scattered foxing, a very good copy. The edition de luxe, limited to 350 numbered copies …

    $550.00 AUD Read more
  • Early Toorak and district (signed presentation copy)

    # 50670

    ROBB, E. M.

    Early Toorak and district (signed presentation copy)

    Melbourne : Robertson & Mullens Limited, 1934. Oblong folio, lettered cloth (marked, split to spine), illustrated. Photographically illustrated history of Toorak and the surrounding suburbs of Malvern, Prahran, South Yarra and Hawthorn. A fine record of nineteenth century colonial architecture and society in Melbourne. With a presentation inscription from the author to ‘R. H. Chaplin …

    Read more
    Reserved
  • The Hawaiian Archipelago. Six months among the palm groves, coral reefs, and volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands.

    # 50584

    BIRD, Isabella

    The Hawaiian Archipelago. Six months among the palm groves, coral reefs, and volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands.

    London : John Murray, 1890. Seventh edition, a later issue, with advertisements dated June 1897. Octavo, bright gilt-illustrated green cloth, very lightly rubbed at edges, gift inscription to the verso of the front free endpaper, pp. xvi; folding map, 318; 32, fore edge foxed, else a very fine copy.  

    $350.00 AUD Read more
  • [CRIMEAN WAR] Free frank front signed by Lord FitzRoy Somerset, later Field Marshal and 1st Baron Raglan, one of the main protagonists in the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854.

    # 50591

    SOMERSET, FitzRoy James Henry

    [CRIMEAN WAR] Free frank front signed by Lord FitzRoy Somerset, later Field Marshal and 1st Baron Raglan, one of the main protagonists in the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854.

    Free frank front, 85 x 125 mm, dated at London, 8 December 1828, addressed to ‘Mrs. Cuffe, St. Wolston’s, Celbridge, Ireland’, and signed lower left ‘FitzRoy Somerset’; laid down on a section cut from a leaf removed from a nineteenth-century autograph album (see note on provenance below), with an annotation by the album’s compiler identifying the …

    $50.00 AUD Read more
  • Foreign forests (copy number 1)

    # 50473

    PORTER Dorothy (1954 - 2018); COLVIN, Robert (1942 - )

    Foreign forests (copy number 1)

    [Euroa, Vic.] : Robert Colvin, 2018. Folio, lettered buckram, screen printed endpapers, pp. [48], poems by Dorothy Porter illustrated with original screen prints by Robert Colvin, a fine copy. Limited to 8 copies plus 4 artist’s proofs, this is copy number 1, signed by Robert Colvin and Andrea Goldsmith, the partner of Dorothy Porter who …

    $1,200.00 AUD Read more
  • A book about Australian women

    # 50431

    JERREMS, Carol (1949 - 1980); FRASER, Virginia (1947 - 2021)

    A book about Australian women

    Photographs by Carol Jerrems. Text edited by Virginia Fraser. Melbourne : Outback Press, 1974. Quarto, illustrated wrappers (a few light creases and lightly marked), pp. 141; [3], illustrated in black and white, light foxing to preliminaries, contemporary small gift inscription dated 1974, a very good copy. Design and layout of the photographic pages by Carol …

    $1,000.00 AUD Read more
  • Completing the picture : women artists and the Heidelberg era

    # 50636

    HAMMOND, Victoria and PEERS, Juliet

    Completing the picture : women artists and the Heidelberg era

    Melbourne : Artmoves, 1992. First edition. Quarto (310 x 220 mm), illustrated wrappers, 88pp., illustrated in colour and b/w.; light handling marks, a fine copy. Excellent reference on a lesser researched school of painters, including A.M.E. Bale, Emma Minnie Boyd, Dora Meeson, Clara Southern, Violet Teague and May Vale; Iso Rae; Jane Price and others.

    $55.00 AUD Read more
  • A century of Australian women artists, 1840s-1940s

    # 50482

    HAMMOND, Victoria

    A century of Australian women artists, 1840s-1940s

    Melbourne : Deutscher Fine Art, 1993. Quarto, illustrated wrappers, spine slightly sunned, pp. 96, colour illustrations throughout. Catalogue of works by female Australian artists between 1840 and 1940. Features an essay by Victoria Hammond. Includes works by May Gibbs, Clarice Beckett, Violet Teague, Grace Crowley, Margaret Preston, Christian Waller, Ruby Lind, Olive Cotton, Ethel Carrick …

    $60.00 AUD Read more
  • Rosalie Ann Thorne (later Watkins), of Rose Bay and Parramatta : a substantial archive of unique manuscript ephemera, 1850s-1890s, including family correspondence and material relating to the homeschooling of the Thorne and Watkins children.

    # 50338

    THORNE (WATKINS), Rosalie Ann (1850-1927)

    Rosalie Ann Thorne (later Watkins), of Rose Bay and Parramatta : a substantial archive of unique manuscript ephemera, 1850s-1890s, including family correspondence and material relating to the homeschooling of the Thorne and Watkins children.

    Provenance: Rosalie Ann Thorne (1850-1927); Elizabeth Cecilia McNally, aka “The Duchess of Spring Hill” (1909-1996), legendary Brisbane antiques dealer and collector; private collection, Queensland. As the archive is so large, we have arranged it into four main sections catalogued under alphabetical headings, A – D (see below). ROSALIE ANN THORNE AND HER FAMILY Rosalie (“Rose”) Ann …

    $6,500.00 AUD Read more
  • The novels of the sisters Bronte

    # 49926

    BRONTE, Charlotte and Anne.

    The novels of the sisters Bronte

    Edinburgh : John Grant, 1907. The Thornton edition. Twelve volumes, octavo, contemporary blue half morocco over buckram (very lightly rubbed), spines in compartments with raised bands, lettered and ruled in gilt with decorations, top edges gilt, fore edges uncut, marbled endpapers, illustrated with numerous photographic plates of places associated with the Bronte sisters. Includes the …

    $5,500.00 AUD Read more
  • Three years in Cachar. With a short account of the Manipur Massacre

    # 49231

    WRIGHT, M. J.

    Three years in Cachar. With a short account of the Manipur Massacre

    Edited by James H. Hartley. London : S. W. Partridge & Co., [1895]. Octavo, gilt-lettered blue cloth (lightly stained), pp. xiv, 15-188, black and white illustrations Missionary life in Assam province, on the Indian-Burmese border, written by a female writer, describing the local population and wildlife. It also contains an account of the Anglo-Manipur War, …

    $375.00 AUD Read more
  • [COOK] Costumes de différentes nations, en miniature. Avec des descriptions.

    # 47286

    [WAKEFIELD, Priscilla; MILLS, Alfred, illustrator]

    [COOK] Costumes de différentes nations, en miniature. Avec des descriptions.

    Paris : Guyot et de Pelafol, 1816. 32mo (68 x 60 mm), original calf, boards with decorative borders in gilt, spine lettered and decorated in gilt (a little worn at the junctions of the head and outer joints), marbled endpapers; 96 pp. with a frontispiece and 47 copperplate illustrations of people of the world; binding …

    $1,500.00 AUD Read more
  • An Australian birthday book / compiled by M.F. and J.B.S. Printed for private circulation only. (Presented by Mabel Fairfax Barr Smith and Jean Balfour St Clare Barr Smith to their younger sister, Joanna Fitzgerald Barr Smith)

    # 47367

    M. F. (Mabel Fitzgerald) & J. (Jean) B. S. (BARR SMITH); SWEET, Samuel White (photographer)

    An Australian birthday book / compiled by M.F. and J.B.S. Printed for private circulation only. (Presented by Mabel Fairfax Barr Smith and Jean Balfour St Clare Barr Smith to their younger sister, Joanna Fitzgerald Barr Smith)

    Adelaide : George Robertson, 1883. Octavo (185 x 130 mm), original brown calf, upper board ruled and lettered in gilt (re-backed, boards scuffed and lightly marked); all edges gilt; original floral endpapers; title-page with presentation inscription by the compilers ‘With Mabel & Jean Barr Smith’s Kind regards / March 2nd 1884’; dedication with ownership signature …

    Read more
    Reserved
  • Magic Casements (deluxe edition, signed by the author and artist)

    # 48693

    WALLACE, Helen E.

    Magic Casements (deluxe edition, signed by the author and artist)

    With three plates from watercolours by Blamire Young. Melbourne: Brown, Prior & Co., 1926. Quarto, gilt-titled ivory buckram in dustjacket (both very fine), 104pp., the plates tipped-in. The deluxe edition of one thousand copies, this one of the first 150 signed by the author and artist. An exceptional copy.

    $250.00 AUD Read more