Fiction

A Fringe of Leaves – Patrick White – First Edition 1976

A very good copy of Patrick White’s novelisation of what was the shipwreck of the Stirling Castle and the subsequent death of all of the survivors except fro Mrs Fraser who would live among the aboriginal people until rescued by a convict tracker.

Published by Jonathan Cape, London in 1976. Octavo, 405 pages, super condition including the jacket. Sydney Nolan jacket art. White had received the Nobel Prize in 1973.

Nice copy of a collectable White edition based on Queensland survival fact.

$30.00

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The Evil Shadow – A Johnny Nero Adventure – 1967

Published by Fleetway in 1967 as part of the Secret Agent Series … this number 19. Card covers, perfect bound, 122 pages plus end fill cartoons.

Quiet scarce, particularly in this condition. An upmarket, more adult, cartoon book. The Evil Shadow is set in Egypt, starts with a bomb at the Aswam dam under construction. A gold finger is found with links to valuable art work thought to be taken by the retreating German army in WWII.

High profile businessman Johnny Nero has a side line as a secret agent … and is recruited to solve the mystery along with his formidable secretary Jenny Bird they have a busy time …

Johnny Nero dealing with the “Evil Shadow” and statuesque Jenny Bird never a hair out of place.

$30.00

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The Canary Jacket – Ann Shead – First Edition 1968

First edition published by Collins, London and Sydney in 1968. A “novel of early Australia” by the distinguished author.

Octavo, 256 pages, a very good copy in a complete and clean dust jacket.

Australian author Ann Shead came from Cornish stock. This story start in Cornwall and smuggling which leads to transportation to New South Wales. The realities of life downunder for convicts bound out to serve a Master are to the fore of the narrative. Things do improve and the book ends pleasantly high and rewarding.

Convicts doing it tough but seeing it through in the end … the lucky ones in the Lucky Country.

$30.00

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Silver Mist – Joan Sutherland – First Edition 1935

1935 first edition with a lovely art deco inspired dust jacket. Published by Cassell, London etc, octavo, 287 pages. A ripple to the front board and the odd spot on page edges, really a very good copy in a super dust jacket.

A romance but with some heat. Penelope falls for Sir Garth. The good looking Garth (they both are) is cited in a divorce 1930’s style. The case failed but Sir Garth was left with the stigma (nothing’s changed there). Lady Olivia is a pursuer but maybe Penelope has some tricks in store.

1935 First Edition by the much admired Sutherland.

$60.00

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The Girl Green as Elderflower – Randolph Stow – First Edition 1980

Another absolutely crisp, as if new first edition published by Secker & Warburg, London in 1980.

Octavo, 150 pages, dust jacket art by John Piper.

Randolph Stow had been awarded the Patrick White Award the previous year. White established the award from funds received form his Nobel Prize … good on him.

Following quickly after Visitants a quite different book by Stow. Previous work often dealing with the deterioration of an individual here we have the opposite. Crispin Claire has been badly afflicted by his time in the Tropics. Convalescing in Suffolk the environment provides nourishment. With improved strength he begins to write a narrative around three 12th Century local stories, and he finds himself moving between the present and the time of Richard the Lionheart. Beautifully and skillfully written.

Unusual and gripping story as can expected from Stow.

$50.00

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Letters writ by a Turkish Spy, Who Liv’d Five and Forty Years Undiscovered at Paris; Giving an Impartial Account to the Divan of Constantinople of the Most Remarkable Transactions in Europe – Complete in Eight Volumes. Giovanni Paolo Marana – 1748

A very nice set of this almost legendary work, complete and unusually in their original bindings. Fictional letters claiming to have been written by an Ottoman spy named “Mahmut the Arabian” embedded in the French Court of Louis XIV.

Published in London by Wilde, Ballard and others in 1748. Eight volumes (Over 600 letters in all), duodecimo, engraved frontispiece to Vol I, full contemporary calf, spines gilt, some joints a bit cracked but holding. A twelfth edition of a great publishing success of the 18thC which would go on for a further fifty years.

Contemporary bookplate of Robert Midgley dated 1748 so the first owner. And the modern book label of Edward John Kenny the Latinist of Peterhouse College, Cambridge University, visiting at Harvard etc.

A journal of gossip and anecdotes on politics and events and shenanigans going on in France at the time.

Written in Italian by Giovanni Paola Marana (1642-1693) a Genoese refugee in the Court of the said Louis XIV. He completed the first volume of 102 letters, and had it translated to French and published in Paris in 1684-1686. Other volumes were published as they were completed over time. English translations by William Bradshaw became available in 1687. Later volumes issued first in English in London leading some to believe they were not by Marana. However, the consistency in style and use of words really points to Marana as being the author of the full set, not doubt with the help of translators and editors of the day.

Well liked by Daniel Defoe who wrote an aptly named “Continuation of Turkish Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy in Paris” … a sort of 18thC sequel.

Incidentally, the last owner Professor Kenny used to gauge his candidates by seeing how nice they were to his cat Fufu … it became known as the Fufu test … that’s Latin for you.

The Turkish Spy – A Classic By Marana

$790.00

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A Fringe of Leaves – Patrick White – First Edition 1976

The Evil Shadow – A Johnny Nero Adventure – 1967

The Canary Jacket – Ann Shead – First Edition 1968

Silver Mist – Joan Sutherland – First Edition 1935

The Girl Green as Elderflower – Randolph Stow – First Edition 1980

Letters writ by a Turkish Spy, Who Liv’d Five and Forty Years Undiscovered at Paris; Giving an Impartial Account to the Divan of Constantinople of the Most Remarkable Transactions in Europe – Complete in Eight Volumes. Giovanni Paolo Marana – 1748

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