Printed on Stone : the lithographs of Charles Troedel.

Melbourne : Melbourne Books, 2020. Quarto, laminated boards, pp. 256, illustrated with more than 70 colour prints from the Troedel archive, plus full reproduction of all 24 plates of The Melbourne Album (lithographic views of Melbourne from 1863–1864) plus select images from the New South Wales Album (1878). New copy.

This book is the first to document the visual history of print advertising in Australia and in so doing provides a valuable illustrated social history of Australia. Charles Troedel (1835–1906) was a master printer and lithographer, and the face behind the production of most of Australia’s early advertising posters, product labels, and other print ephemera, as well as the iconic Melbourne Album. Troedel’s catalogue of lithographs traces the production and evolution of nineteenth century commerce and culture—in the home, at the bar, in health, hygiene and housework, with fashion and style and in leisurely pursuits—defining the legal categories under which this content was protected and the way advertising came to be regulated.

A history such as this is only possible because of the well-preserved archive documenting the work of Charles Troedel and his firm Troedel & Co. This archive includes the corporate records of Troedel’s printing business spanning over a century, and nearly 10,000 copies of print specimens produced by the company, which were donated by the firm to the State Library of Victoria in 1968. The author of the book, Dr Amanda Scardamaglia, has meticulously researched this archive as a State Library of Victoria Creative Fellow in 2015–2016.

This book brings the archive out of the hollows of the State Library of Victoria and into the public gaze for the first time.

Dr Amanda Scardamaglia is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of the Swinburne Law School. Her area of research is intellectual property law with a special focus on empirical and historical studies in trade mark law, branding and advertising. She is author of the book Colonial Australian Trade Mark Law: Narratives in Lawmaking, People, Power and Place (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2015).