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  • Ghost Towns of Australia – George Farwell

    Ghost Towns of Australia – George Farwell

    Published by Rigby, Adelaide in 1965. Octavo, 247 pages with plates and map end papers. Minor ageing with relevant article glued in at end. A Very good copy.

    Australia has its fair share of towns no longer up to their former glory … indeed many completely gone. That is the nature of pioneering existence whether mineral or agricultural or some other purpose.

    Interesting images of once glorious places

    $30.00

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  • The Island Builders of the Pacific – Walter Ivens – First Edition 1930 – Prestigious Ownership Scarce Dust Jacket

    The Island Builders of the Pacific – Walter Ivens – First Edition 1930 – Prestigious Ownership Scarce Dust Jacket

    Published by Seeley, London a first edition 1930 in very good condition with full dust jacket. Prestigious relevant ownership.

    Title continues … “How and Why the People of Mala Construct their Artificial Islands, the Antiquity and Doubtful Origin of the Practice, with a Description of the Social Organization, Magic and Religion of their Inhabitants”

    The author Walter G. Ivens, at the time, was a Research Fellow of the University of Melbourne and had already authored several respected anthropological works. Very good condition and very rare to find it in its dust jacket.

    Thick octavo, 317 pages, 18 illustrations from photographs, three maps of which two are folding and one most interesting sketch map of Mala.

    The book covers; North Mala; the Artificial Islands; Social Organisation; Marriage, Women and Children; Ghosts; Priests and Sacrifices; Sharks and Crocodiles; Porpoise and Turtle Hunting; War and Fighting; Burials, Death-feasts and Panpipes; Magic, Divination, Omens, Signs and Dreams; Ceremonies, Tabu, Restrictions and Curses; The North-East lagoon and its People; Gardens and House Building; The People of Morodo; Folk-lore and The Cultures of North Mala.

    Ownership stamp of esteemed anthropologist Harold W Scheffler (1932-2015) at Yale and his name written and dated 1960 when he would have been completing his PhD at Chicago where he was a Fullbright scholar. During that period he conducted 18 months field work on the island of Choiseul in the Solomons so this book may have been with him. He joined the Yale faculty in 1963 and his principle research continued in the Solomon Islands and also Vanuatu and among the aboriginal people of Australia focusing on kinship and social organisation. He published many papers in this field. The book has many careful and tidy pencil annotations which could be removed but we have not as we believe it greatly adds to the interest of this copy.

    Scarce interesting prestigious owner

    $160.00

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  • The Strand Magazine – with an Arthur Conan Doyle First Publication – 1898

    The Strand Magazine – with an Arthur Conan Doyle First Publication – 1898

    A complete volume of the Strand Magazine being January to June 1898 in very good condition in the original green leather binding with elaborate gilt design and titling to spine.

    As would be expected many interesting period articles, stories and the likes .. one on Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) by Beatrice Hatch is rather special.

    The “piece that cannot be resisted” is a first publication of the short story by Arthur Conan Doyle … “The Story of the Beetle-Hunter” which was later published in a collection of short stories “Round the Fire” in 1908. The story, which runs to ten pages, contains eight illustrations by Archibald S Hattrick (1864-1950).

    Conan Doyle First and More in Very Good Condition.

    $140.00

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  • Unique Work English Literature – The Prose of Christina Rossetti – Lynda Palazzo – Original PhD Thesis Durham University1992

    Unique Work English Literature – The Prose of Christina Rossetti – Lynda Palazzo – Original PhD Thesis Durham University1992

    A high quality PhD thesis the author gaining a doctorate from Durham University. A unique work on the prose of Christina Rossetti more remembered for her beautiful poetry. Rossetti’s nine works are explored to a depth unseen elsewhere and Palazzo also presents here unpublished work – “notes on Genesis” with permission of descendant Joan Rossetti and a manuscript page from “Treasure Trove” permission of the Fitzwilliam Museum. Typed one sided 168 pages of A4 hardbound with blue cloth covers gilt titling to front and spine. Fine condition unmarked. Beautifully written superbly structured and full references.

    The author Lynda Carol Palazzo went to Kings School Macclesfield before entry to the prestigious University of Durham. This Thesis led to her published work ten year later in 2002 the highly regarded “Christina Rossetti’s Feminist Theology”.

    A Unique work for lovers of 19th Century English Literature

    About Christina Rossetti

    Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) sister of Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti (for whom she sat in a number of his greatest works including “The Girlhood of Mary Virgin”. She published her first work at the age of eighteen – on the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning she was hailed as the natural successor as female laureate. She was a strong minded Victorian woman opposed to war, slavery, cruelty to animals, the exploitation of girls in under age prostitution. Sadly in later life she suffered from Graves disease and later developed and died of breast cancer – she is buried in Highgate. Her poem “In the Bleak Midwinter” became Voyager’s favourite Christmas Carol.

    $80.00

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  • Unproduced Film Script – Joseph Conrad’s “The Heart of Darkness”

    Late 1970’s unproduced film script titled “Voyage to the Inner Station: Joseph Conrad’s Descent and Return from the Heart of Darkness” 134 pages of script in the agency covers of Paul Kohner – Michael Levy.

    The author is named John nelson Reid and believed to be one of the many pseudonyms of successful writer Shimon Wincelberg (Naked City, The Time Tunnel, The Paper Chase, Have a Gun – Will Travel etc).

    The copy of Ilse Lahn who as a successful producer and worked at the agency around that time. Paul Kohner was in the movie business from the early days and would have been in his seventies when this script appeared. He was very successful and managed Ingmar Bergman, Maurice Chevalier, Dietrich, Garbo, Huston and many more. Michael Levy headed up CBS Theatrical Films which was generally unsuccessful.

    There are no telling reasons why this script didn’t get to production. One of the difficulties would be that there was another unfulfilled script based on the book written by Orson Welles … it did not make it either … it was regarded as to difficult (read expensive) to produce but many think it was because Welles was frozen out of Hollywood because he upset Randolph Hearst when he made Citizen Kane.

    We have read it through and we like it!

    We also have the book see separate listing for the summary storyline.

    Could be a gold mine waiting – Conrad’s Heart of darkness scripted but not acted

    $190.00

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  • Forbidden Books (Victorian Erotica) – An Old Bibliophile – 1902 Privately Printed 375 Copies.

    Notes & Gossip on Tabooed Literature … The Old Bibliophile was John S Farmer. This book published for the author and his friends in Paris 1902.

    Limited edition of 375 copies. Small quarto 227 pages khaki marbled paper covered boards vignettes at chapter headings. Very good condition.

    Summaries of banned books largely with an erotic content. John Farmer was a brilliant lexicographer and this book is supposedly based on publications by Charles Carrington who was known for his naughtiness.

    Rare and naughty from the Old Bibliophile

    $140.00

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