Non-fiction

The Retospect: Or, Review of Providential Mercies: With Anecdotes of Various Characters, and an Address to Naval Officers – Aliquis (Richard Marks)

The author was formerly a Lieutenant in the Rpyal Navy, and now a Minister in the Established Church

Published in London by James Nisbet of Oxford Street, 1816, a first edition.

A contemporary half leather binding. 12mo. 239 pages. Green leather spine and corners over marbled boards. Corners lightly rubbed and scuffed but nicely presented and tightly bound. Spine with 5 raised bands with blind-stamp decorated compartments and original red leather title label. Clean text throughout. A very good copy of this scarce book especially the 1816 edition.

Marks, Richard (1778–1847) was born in 1778 at North Crawley, Buckinghamshire, the son of Thomas and Mary Marks. Enlisting in the wartime navy in 1797, he found a ready outlet for a self-described partiality for water, gunpowder, and ‘deeds of dangerous enterprise. Here he recalls how he immediately immersed himself in the opportunities for ‘unabated licentiousness’ of contemporary shipboard life, ‘the broad road of destruction, loud in blasphemy, and ever ready to burlesque the Holy Scriptures’. Two narrow escapes from shipwreck in successive ships seemed only to confirm him in a life he openly describes as deliberate rebellion against God. After returning to England in 1810, following thirteen years of unrelenting sea service, Marks relinquished prospects of further advancement in the navy in order to follow an inner call to the ministry. He was admitted to Magdalene College, Cambridge and in 1813 he was ordained as a priest. He gave up his naval half pay, and served an initial seven-year curacy in a remote village parish. From 1820, following these ‘wilderness years’, as he later called them, he ministered for the remaining quarter century of his active life among ‘the humble cottagers’ of Buckinghamshire, as vicar of Great Missenden

Aliquis had experience

$120.00

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Mendel’s Principles of Heredity – W Bateson

Full red/burgundy leather binding and beautifully gilt embossed all edges richly gilt from the Classics of Medicine Library 1990. Very good condition 296 pages. With coloured plates and figures in the text. A facsimile of the famous 1909 published work by W Bateson.

Mendel understood how it works

$50.00

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The Australian and Californian Gold Discoveries and Their Probable Consequences; or, An Inquiry Into the Laws Which Determine the Value and Distribution of the Precious Metals – Patrick Stirling F.R.S.E

With Historical Notices of the Effects of the American Mines on European Prices in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries.

Published by Greenwood Press of New York in 1969. Facsimile reprint of the 1853 Oliver & Boyd first edition. Original blue cloth binding, with gilt titles. Issued without a dust jacket. Folding frontispiece of the value of precious metals gained showing the impact great discoveries of the 1840’s.

An important book comprising an economic discourse on gold and the history of coinage, comparison with silver, and the economics effects of the Australian and California gold discoveries.

Important gold book with early Australian content

$40.00

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The Springing of George Blake by Sean Bourke (the Springer)

Published by Cassell London in 1970 a very good copy in a very good dust jacket.

George Blake got 42 years for spying for the Russians. He was sprung from Wormwood Scrubs by an Irishman Sean Burke who wrote the book in Moscow had it confiscated and then later returned to him now back in Dublin.

Sean Burke did it all alone

$40.00

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Antarctica Observed – A.G.E. Jones

Published by Caedmon of Whitby in 1982 a very fine copy.

The author Jones published this book in Whitby – he was an Antarctic expert of note. His mission here was to draw a proper conclusion as to who saw the Antarctic first – through thorough research of original logs and diaries and carefully re-plotting the tracks of Cook, Bellingshausen, Smith and Bransfield, Palmer etc all likely candidates. His conclusions are … in the book.

Special Antarctica by an expert

$30.00

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Report on the military occupation of the German New Guinea possession – 1922 – With Very Large Coloured Map

Report (accompanied by a massive map) by the Minister of State for Defence on the military occupation of the German New Guinea possessions, published by the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1922.

Contains a report examining the position in the Pacific at the commencement of WWI, and the dispatch of the Australian Naval and Military Expedition Force. The report examines, the movement and nature of both the German and Australian fleets around New Guinea, from the outbreak of war on 4th August, 1914. The report includes a description of the territory, the northwest Pacific Expedition, laws in force in the territory and the administration of justice, administration of native affairs, a brief examination of tropical medicine, territory revenues and tropical agriculture including currency and coinage, costs of administration and policy in regard to German nationals.

Nicely bound, by a later collector with gilt title to front spine.

The map, with dimensions of about 150x150cm (see accompanying photograph) is in colour and comprising the New Guinea mainland, New Britain and surrounding islands and the tip of Cape York. Very detailed. It represents the pre-war position and although undated likely comes from circa 1910. It is an exceptional map of the period the value of which more than underpins this item

$190.00

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The Retospect: Or, Review of Providential Mercies: With Anecdotes of Various Characters, and an Address to Naval Officers – Aliquis (Richard Marks)

Mendel’s Principles of Heredity – W Bateson

The Australian and Californian Gold Discoveries and Their Probable Consequences; or, An Inquiry Into the Laws Which Determine the Value and Distribution of the Precious Metals – Patrick Stirling F.R.S.E

The Springing of George Blake by Sean Bourke (the Springer)

Antarctica Observed – A.G.E. Jones

Report on the military occupation of the German New Guinea possession – 1922 – With Very Large Coloured Map

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