Oz magazine : a complete set of the Australian issues, no. 1, April 1963 – no. 41, February 1969

Sydney : Oz Publications Ink Limited, 1963-1969. Forty-one issues, quarto, original stapled wrappers, various paginations between 16 and 20 pages, all illustrated; an expected amount of toning and occasional mild foxing; overall very good condition throughout; a rare complete set of the Australian issues of one of the most significant counterculture publications of the 60s.

The Australian satirical magazine Oz was an important phenomenon of the underground press of the 1960s. Initially edited by Richard Neville, Richard Walsh and the revered pop artist Martin Sharp (who designed most of the covers as well as contributing cartoons and other art work), it was published in Sydney between 1963 and 1969. A separate London version of Oz, edited by Neville, Jim Anderson and Felix Dennis, was published from 1967 until 1973. Throughout its history – a lengthy one for a periodical which existed well and truly outside the mainstream press – Australian Oz attracted contributors who were to become influential figures in their respective fields, as well as in public intellectual life of the 60s and beyond. These contributors included such luminaries as Robert Hughes, Germaine Greer, Philippe Mora, Michael Leunig, Garry Shead, Peter Kingston and Bob Ellis. Always subversive and irreverent, Oz was never far from major controversy. The magazine survived an infamous obscenity trial in 1964, an experience which would aid London Oz in a similar trial in 1971.