Jewelled nights

London : Hutchinson, [1923]. First edition. Octavo, publisher’s black-lettered blue cloth (spine ends a little softened); early ownership inscription to front free-endpaper; pp, 317; binding firm, very clean throughout, an excellent copy.

Tasmanian novelist Marie Bjelke Petersen’s Jewelled nights tells the story of a runaway bride who seeks her fortune in the osmiridium fields on the west coast of Tasmania.

The novel was adapted for the screen by Australian silent film star Louise Lovely – who, with Bjelke Petersen’s blessing, wrote the screenplay, directed, produced, and starred in Jewelled nights (1926), now a lost Australian film (only a two-minute section has survived).