Fiction

The Little Green Road to Fairyland – By Annie R Rentoul and Ida Rentoul Outhwaite – First Australian edition 1948

This is the first Australian printing of this beautifully illustrated, and written, children’s book by Australian Rentoul sisters Annie and Ida (Outhwaite by marriage).

First published in London in 1922 in a deluxe limited issue. This first Australian edition was issued in 1948 still under the original publishers name, Adam and Charles Black, Soho Square, London and printed by Speciality Press, Collins Street, Melbourne.

Quarto, 94 pages with sixteen plates, half in colour by Ida. Still has the hard to come by dust jacket albeit signs of tape repair (tape now removed) an a little pink crayon near the edge. Gift inscription inside otherwise internally very clean, with all the plates … sometimes pilfered.
Reference Muir 739.

Collectable first Australian printing – beautiful Ida Outhwaite plates delightful Annie Rentoul narrative.

$180.00

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Brighton Rock – Graham Greene – First Australian edition 1944

First Australian edition published by Invincible Press printed by “Truth”. Published in 1944. Softcover, octavo, stapled 175 pages showing some usual even toning of war paper – still a pretty good copy. Cover design identical to the UK first.

The Publisher summary on the front cover is taken from the Heinemann first UK edition of 1938 … “A story of murder and love, of guilt and faith, of the perpetual conflict between evil and good, Brighton Rock is one of the most powerful and exciting novels the publishers have handled” … and it certainly is …

Many regard this as Greene’s greatest work. Being short in form he still regarded it as an “Entertainment” rather than a fully formed and sized novel.

Dickie Attenborough starred in the first film adaptation … now recognised as a classic … Dickie was brilliant in the role of the central character

Graham Greene Collectable

$90.00

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Steve Young or the Voyage of the “Hvalross” to the Icy Sea – Fenn – circa 1915

The author George Manville Fenn was a prolific writer of adventure stories for the young in the Victorian era.

Published by Partridge and Co, London. Octavo, 416 nicely illustrated. Evenly browned internally otherwise a very good copy. Embossed illustrated boards and spine in near fine condition. Looks a beauty.

A rare book and we cannot find the title on his “official’ list of publications This edition circa WWI era .. we cannot find any other contemporary copies available.

Hvalross is Norwegian for Walrus. Steve Young is an orphan whose uncle, Captain Young has disappeared on a voyage in and around Spitzbergen in the Arctic Ocean. The Captain’s friends charter a boat the Norwegian “Hvalross” to search for him. Sixteen year old Steve goes along much to the disgust of the ships Doctor who thinks young fellows are just a nuisance. Gales, storms, intense cold and Polar Bears … strong currents complete darkness all add to the adventure.

Scarce adventure on the “Walrus” up around Spitzbergen …

$140.00

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Maigret Afraid – Georges Simenon – First english edition 1961

First English edition 1961 published by Hamish Hamilton. Previously published in French in 1953.

Octavo, 192 pages in very good condition. Written by Simenon when he lived at Shadow Rock Farm, Lakeville, Connecticut.

Maigret has been at a conference in Bordeaux. On the way home he drops off at Fontenay to meet and old friends. A murder has been committed and then another and Maigret gets drawn in … its tricky as society in Fontenay is rather different and there are some very strange goings on.

Maigret afraid? … well maybe … maybe not

$35.00

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A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder – James De Mille -1900

Published by Harper, New York in 1900. A very good clean copy of this Utopian, Hollow Earth fantasy. By James De Mille and in true Jules Verne style.

Octavo with original deep red cloth covered boards with black and gilt lettering and device. 291 pages, frontispiece of the author and seven plates.

During a voyage in the yacht Falcon in 1850 a strange copper cylinder is retrieved from the Ocean. It contains the manuscript of Adam More of Keswick, Cumberland. His is an incredible tale. He was crewing on a vessel taking convicts to Van Dieman’s Land in 1843. On the return journey they went by Desolation Island where they were becalmed … venturing out to catch seal the got into all sorts of trouble and eventually found themselves in an unusual world with the Antarctic among strange people, strange creatures and strange goings on. Regarded as one of the best in the genre …

From Hobart Town to the centre of the Antarctic and the people that live there

SO SORRY SOLD

$150.00

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The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St Patricks, Dublin, Accurately in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper Plates; with Some account of the Author’s Life, and Notes Historical and Explanatory, by John Hawkesworth

Six large quarto volumes in contemporary full leather bindings published London, 1755, first editions in this form. Printed by C. Bathurst, C. Davis, C. Hitch etc. Complete and in very good condition. Various plates including, in particular the plates and maps relating to Gulliver’s Travels.

Each volume bound in full leather with gilt moniker centre front. Raised bands to spines with six compartments those free with gilt decoration. Black leather title and volume labels showing some age and Vol 1 with loss. Gilt lines to boards and gilt knurling to board edges and on board inside edges. Marbled end paper, marbled page edges

The first noted owners of the set are of interest. Isaac Blackburne born in 1759 to Thomas Blackburne High Sheriff of Lancashire. He went to school in Manchester and then Oriel College, Oxford where he qualifies BA in 1782 and MA 1785. During the “French Wars” he was Captain in Lord Stanley’s Lancashire Regiment. His sister Anne Blackburne was a distinguished botanist who corresponded with Linnaeus. She was the first person to cultivate pineapples in England. Isaac died 17th December 1830. The volumes record the passing to his son Thomas Blackburne via his sister Mary the following year.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) barely requires introduction. An Anglo-Irish satirist, political pamphleteer for the Whigs and then the Tories, poet and cleric who became the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. Whilst Gulliver’s Travels is foremost in most minds he also wrote and included here – A Modest Proposal; A Journal to Stella; Drapier’s Letters; The Battle of the Books; A Tale of a Tub etc. The foremost satirist in the English language and Master of both the Horatian and Juvenalian styles of that creed.

The presentation of Gulliver’s Travels is excellent. Pages throughout are clean and the plates and in particular the maps are well executed and full quarto page size. The relevance to Australia may not be understood by all with Lilliput set south of Sumatra and with Van Diemen’s Land featuring in the south east … Houyhnhnms Land and the Yahoos, as everybody knows, was discovered in 1711 and sits off the coast of South Australia.

The “biographer” John Hawkesworth requires mention, a man of distinction not the least in that he wrote up the official account of James Cook’s First Voyage in the Endeavour and the discovery of the East Coast of Australia.

Superior Quarto Swift’s Works in Six Volumes including Gulliver’s Travels Full leather binding – 1755

$1,690.00

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The Little Green Road to Fairyland – By Annie R Rentoul and Ida Rentoul Outhwaite – First Australian edition 1948

Brighton Rock – Graham Greene – First Australian edition 1944

Steve Young or the Voyage of the “Hvalross” to the Icy Sea – Fenn – circa 1915

Maigret Afraid – Georges Simenon – First english edition 1961

A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder – James De Mille -1900

The Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Dean of St Patricks, Dublin, Accurately in Six Volumes, Adorned with Copper Plates; with Some account of the Author’s Life, and Notes Historical and Explanatory, by John Hawkesworth

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