Australian Rare

The Mutineer – A Romance of Pitcairn Island – Louis Becke and Walter Jeffrey – First Colonial (Australian) Edition 1898.

Likely technically the first edition is the London issue of that year. The first and this issue the first Colonial issue by Angus & Robertson both extremely scarce.

Octavo, 298 pages plus Publishers catalogue. Original dark green cloth covered binding, gilt title to spine. The odd mark to the boards, missing front free end paper and occasional light ageing. Otherwise really not bad and, try to find another one.

George Lewis Becke (1855-1913) was born at Port Macquarie and must be regarded as the best Australian author of the period in the genre adventure … South Seas … historical based fiction. He has been compared with Robert Louis Stevenson, Melville, Kipling, Conrad etc exalted company indeed.

Becke had the pedigree – from an early age he escaped to the South Pacific … ferried vessels to Bully Hayes, was tried (and acquitted) as a pirate at Brisbane at the age of 19 etc etc.

Prolific writer once he settled down. This Bounty Mutiny based story one of the later works and a collaboration. Didn’t get into print in the USA as a relationship between different races didn’t fit the then standards.

With a novel we at Voyager always like a good short helpful first sentence. We have the first paragraph here just to get you into the mood.

“It was night at Tahiti, in the Society Islands. The trade-wind had died away, and a bright flood of shimmering moonlight poured down upon the slumbering waters of a little harbour a few miles distant from Matavia Bay, and the white curve of beach that fringed the darkened line of palms shone and glistened like a belt of ivory under the effulgence of its rays. For nearly half a mile the broad sweep of dazzling sand showed no interruption nor break upon its surface save at one spot; there it ran out into a long narrow point, on which, under a small cluster of graceful cocos, growing almost at the water’s edge, a canoe was drawn up”.

Louis Becke’s scarce and somewhat controversial South Seas story.

$120.00

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Bony Buys a Woman – Arthur Upfield – First edition 1957

A very good copy of the First Edition published by Heinemann, London etc in 1957.

Octavo, 237 pages, with slight foxing in the front ends, clean through the text and as good a dust jacket as you will get.

Undoubtedly a controversial title nowadays. But as often there is a different twist and the buying process is all part of the solution to a murder that only Bony could solve.

Highly collectable Arthur Upfield, a writer of his times, and one of his better plots. The dijeridoo provides the first clue … Bony risks his life in around the mud of Lake Eyre

Nice dust jacket art of the said Lake Eyre with a hint of water in the distance.

Bony out at lake Eyre solving another complex outback murder. An Upfield First in its Jacket

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$80.00

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The Will of the Tribe – Arthur Upfield – First Edition 1962

First edition published by Heinemann, London in 1962. Octavo, 245 pages.

Foxing to the somewhat spongy paper in the ends and page edges. Jacket a bit tatty now protected in Brodart. Having said all that a hard to come by valuable first edition.

In 1905 a sizeable meteor struck in north-western Australia. The locals nicknamed it “the Stranger”. Now another stranger is found … dead … and left in the middle of the crater. No clues as to how he got there … In comes Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte “Bony”. He will resolve it; but not without the usual twists and turns and the beauty of the outback references.

Bony solves the mystery in the crater … a first edition albeit a bit tired.

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$50.00

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Bony and the Black Virgin – Arthur Upfield – First Edition 1959

First edition published by Heinemann, London in 1959. An attractive copy.

Octavo, 246 pages. Gift inscription on free end paper. Otherwise a very clean and bright copy of an often badly foxed edition.

Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte “Bony”. Here he is in drought stricken outback New South Wales where two stockmen have been beaten to death. Bony is given little help from the “white folk” and the local aborigines. He becomes intrigued by the tough daughter of a neighbouring farmer, Robin and a young beautiful aborigine, Lottee. He resolves this what turns out to be a simple murder, but consequences follow that are not so simple!

Bony in the outback another murder resolved – but with consequences!

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$70.00

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The Lake Frome Monster – Arthur Upfield

This was Arthur Upfield’s last novel. Incomplete at his death it was crafted into publication by J L Price and Dorothy Strange.

Published first in 1966, (Upfield had died in 1964). This re-set edition published by Heinemann, London in 1973.

Octavo, 184 pages, all in very good condition.

The last Napoleon Bonaparte novel. Lake Frome is in South Australia, it’s large but rarely fills with water. A roving photographer is found dead … the monster? Bony sets about resolving the unusual murder, disguised as workman tending the very long dog-proof fence. His life is in danger … but our Bony is no coward!

Detective Bony … out in the dirt solving the weirdest of murders.

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$45.00

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Man of Two Tribes – Arthur Upfield – First Edition 1956

A scarce first edition published by Heinemann in 1956. Octavo, 214 pages, nice dust jacket albeit some chips.

Despite the title the book starts with an acquitted murderess walking off a train in the Nullarbor Plain. Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte sets out on camel etc to find her. What he finds is even more strange than this very strange beginning.

Upfield challenges Bony’s talents in the dreaded Nullabor Plain

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$80.00

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The Mutineer – A Romance of Pitcairn Island – Louis Becke and Walter Jeffrey – First Colonial (Australian) Edition 1898.

Bony Buys a Woman – Arthur Upfield – First edition 1957

The Will of the Tribe – Arthur Upfield – First Edition 1962

Bony and the Black Virgin – Arthur Upfield – First Edition 1959

The Lake Frome Monster – Arthur Upfield

Man of Two Tribes – Arthur Upfield – First Edition 1956

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