Pen and ink : an anthology of prose and verse written by various members of the Frensham Pen and Ink Club. (With an original signed photograph by Harold Cazneaux)

/ chosen by E.L.T., R.D., J.P. ; the lino-cuts and the cover are designed by members of the Art Club. [Mittagong, N.S.W.] : Frensham Press, 1940. Octavo (190 x 130 mm), original mauve card covers with French flaps and linocut design to front (sunned at edges and along spine), inside front cover with limitation statement in fountain pen ‘No. 79 of 140′; pp. 52, [4], with numerous linocut illustrations; internally excellent, a very good copy; loosely enclosed at the rear is an original gelatin silver print photograph of a bush idyll near Frensham by Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953), 115 x 82 mm, tipped on a textured paper mount which is captioned and signed in pencil by the photographer “Fantasy” / “Cazneaux”.

Scarce volume of poetry and linocut illustrations by students of Frensham, the exclusive girls’ school in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, printed in an edition of 140 copies on the Frensham Press. It includes literary contributions by the highly-regarded Australian poet Rosemary Dobson (1920-2012), Sheila Gordon, Jean Grant, Sybil Hinder, Suzanne du Boise, Valerie Stephen, Anne Wienholt, and Iris Livingstone. The linocuts, which were apparently selected by Sydney printmaker Roy Davies, are by Suzanne du Boise, Diana Gibson, Sheila Gordon, Rachel Hedgeland, and Nancy Keesing.

It is significant that there is a photograph by Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953) inserted in this particular copy of Pen and Ink: Cazneaux did have a strong association with Frensham, stemming from the fact that in 1934 he was commissioned by its first headmistress, Miss Winifred West, to photographically document the school. The superlative results were published that year by Ure Smith as The Frensham book : 100 pictures by Cazneaux of an Australian school. The AGNSW holds at least two individual prints from this series: one (89.1975), of a student and teacher printing a linocut, is titled Lino-cuts: Frensham School 1934 ; the other (315.1994), of girls holding hands while crossing a creek in the mist, is titled The Crossing, Frensham School, Mittagong 1934. The photograph titled Fantasy, found inside this volume, was clearly taken in precisely the same bush setting close to the school as this latter image.

Rosemary Dobson (1920-2012)