Tasmania and Van Diemens Land

Looking for La Perouse – Frank Horner

Looking for La Perouse D’Entrecasteaux in Australia and the South Pacific 1792 – 1793 by Frank Horner.

A 1996 first soft cover edition. Octavo, 317 pages, published by Melbourne University Press. A nice copy. Heavily illustrated.

Solid read with maps, charts and illustrations. Bruny d’Entrecasteaux might have failed to find the doomed La Perouse but made some important observations in Tasmania, Western Australia and New Guinea.

Top of the class Frank Horner

$30.00

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More than Half a Century of Colonial Life (South Australia) – Henry Hussey

Title continues … “and Christian Experience, with Notes of Travel, Lectures, Publications etc”

Henry Hussey (1825-1902) was an Evangelist, Printer, Historian who recorded his life an travels and published the work in 1897. It is full of colonial detail on many subjects.

The Adelaide’s Library Board selected the work for their magnificent facsimile series, published by them as no 203 in 1978.

Octavo, 504 pages, bound in tan in their normal style. A fine copy.

Interesting that the original was published by Hussey & Gillingham, Adelaide … the authors jointly owned business.

Hussey emigrates to South Australia and recounts his early days; visits Launceston and Sydney. Has various occupations and commercial failures and “disasters”. Commenced business as a printer, distracted by gold discovery in Victoria; recommences business …saves the “Observer”. Travel to America via Tahiti and Panama with “incidents” … a tour Baptised at Bethany … to England and back home to Adelaide. A History of Sa … Secretary to Angus … etc

A fine copy of a book about a fine man in fine times in Australia.

$30.00

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Wrecks & Reputations [The Loss of the Schomberg and Loch Ard] – Don Charlwood

Published by Angus & Robertson in 1977. A very good copy, 190 pages with fine dust jacket.

Don Charwood’s well researched tightly composed and nicely illustrated account of the difficulties of early vessels sailing through the Western entrance of the Bass Strait.

Particular reference to the fate of the Schomberg and the Loch Ard and to its only survivors Eva Carmichael and the young man that saved her Tom Pearce.

The fate of many other ships of the “Loch” brand are listed – leads one to conclude never to sail in a vessel named Loch anything!

What out for the rocks!

$25.00

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Australian Fairywrens – Sir William Jardine – 1826

An original hand-coloured engraving of three species of Australian Fairywrens published in Edinburgh 1826 by Scotland’s greatest naturalist Sir William Jardine (1800-1874).

The engraving was published as part of Jardine’s first great work “Illustrations in Ornithology” a now scarce and valuable collection of bird engravings.

Printed on strong paper with a good plate mark, albeit a little tight on the left (32cm by 22cm). Very good condition.

Drawn by William Jardine himself and signed in the plate. This engraving and colouring have a somewhat naive nature which we think gives them a special artistic appeal.

We have the male Red Breasted Fairywren (Malarus Brownii); Variegated Fairywren (Malarus Lamberli) and the Superb Fairywren (Malarus Cyaneus). The Red Breasted is prevalent from the very North of Australia around the Kimberleys down to the Hunter Valley; the Variegated is found along the East Coast as is the Superb Fairywren although this beautiful creature is more common in the South and Tasmania

Jardine was the 7th Baronet of Applegirth, Dumfriesshire and founder of the Ray Society. He was a superb artist in his own right but utilised the great illustrators of the day to complete his works including, Edward Lear, Selby, Stewart, Thompson and William Holmes-Lizars

Price $180.00 Unframed

Australian Fairywrens – Three of Them

$120.00

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Hobart Botanical Gardens -1840 Jardin Botanique D’Hobart-Town – Original Lithograph from the Voyage of Dumont d”Urville

An original lithograph from a drawing by Louis Le Breton (1818-1866) published as part of the great “Atlas Pittoresque” to accompany “Voyage au Pole Sud et dans l’Oceanie sur les corvettes l’Astrolabe et la Zelee … sous commandement de M.J. Dumont d’Urville”.

A detailed view of the botanical gardens looking back to the river Derwent with the French vessel at anchor sails furled. Teo typical Derwent river yachts of the era in sail.

Lithographed by P Blanchard on sturdy paper – 25 x 22cm to the edge of the image with very wide margin. Some handling and age marks in the wide margin, none on the lithograph itself – overall good condition. A scarce Hobart image.

Price $240.00 unframed – rare

Well executed image from the voyage of Dumont d’Urville.

$160.00

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The Antiquity of the Aborigines of Australia and Tasmania – The Discovery of Gold – Magnetism etc – Georgina King FRASA – Sydney 1924

A self-published pamphlet by Georgina King of work previously published in the “Sunday Times”. Printed by William Brooks, Sydney and issued in 1924.

Octavo, 23 pages, soft wrappers as issued, three illustrations in the text regarding aboriginals. Some age from use still a very good copy.

The articles are as per the title … The Antiquity of the Aborigines of Australia and Tasmania – Two Stone Ages in Australia; The Discovery of Gold and How it was Found in Payable Quantities; Magnetism – terrestrial and Universal; Diamond and Their Origin.

A most usual body of work. Georgina King (1845-1932) was an amateur geologist and anthropologist. As a woman she was excluded from the “professional” category e.g. she was not allowed to read her own paper at the Royal society of NSW. Her ideas were rather whacky though and make for interesting reading … they did not stop her becoming a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society. The daughter of Rev George King she was advised by him and naturalist Bennett not to marry if she wanted to get on in her chosen filed. She corresponded with Robert Logan Jack regarding geology and Huxley on natural sciences. In her eccentricity she blamed other for stealing her ideas, including Edgeworth David on her radical concepts of the earth’s formation and Einstein on the theory of relativity. She believed diamonds were fossilised marine organisms … quoting from the paper contained here …

“Diamonds existed as marine organisms. They are composed of pure carbon, containing only a little hydrogen, and the most minute particles are often found in what were small cavities, perhaps their breathing apparatus; some were like feathers. The cleavages of the diamond were the gills of those marine organisms …”

Her article of the aborigines is a lot more grounded. She was a friend of Daisy bates and provided financial support to Bates for her work among aboriginal people.

Georgina King isolated Australian Scientist with some wild ideas and some interesting ones.

$50.00

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Looking for La Perouse – Frank Horner

More than Half a Century of Colonial Life (South Australia) – Henry Hussey

Wrecks & Reputations [The Loss of the Schomberg and Loch Ard] – Don Charlwood

Australian Fairywrens – Sir William Jardine – 1826

Hobart Botanical Gardens -1840 Jardin Botanique D’Hobart-Town – Original Lithograph from the Voyage of Dumont d”Urville

The Antiquity of the Aborigines of Australia and Tasmania – The Discovery of Gold – Magnetism etc – Georgina King FRASA – Sydney 1924

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