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Victoria

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  • Chance or Design? – A Pioneer Looks Back [Papua New Guinea] – George Seymour Fort

    Chance or Design? – A Pioneer Looks Back [Papua New Guinea] – George Seymour Fort

    George Fort (1851-1951) was prodding ninety when he wrote this reminiscence and it’s an interesting one particularly his time in New Guinea as an aid to Sir Peter Scratchley who carried out the annexation. Some history of events in that period that we have not seen elsewhere,

    Published by Robert Hale, London in 1942. Octavo, 180 pages, good images from early New Guinea photographs. Original blue cloth covered boards, a very good copy.

    As well as Australasia and New Guinea, Fort spent time in South Africa and Rhodesia. Chapters on Prospecting Experiences in Manicaland.

    Fort kept the Fort in New Guinea and had some interesting things to say about it…

    $40.00

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  • Tall Ships and Sailormen – A Concise Survey of Victoria’s early Maritime History – J. K. Loney.

    Tall Ships and Sailormen – A Concise Survey of Victoria’s early Maritime History – J. K. Loney.

    Self published by the irreplaceable Jack Loney who knew everything maritime everything shipwreck there was to know.

    Soft cover, 100 pages with an unusual unpaginated inset of 18 pages with images from photographs .. this may be an addition to the book … printed on smaller paper stock. Bar that, further illustrations, maps, charts etc.

    The usual Loney comprehensive approach covering … Bully Forbes; Lure of Gold; Steamships; Tragic Loch Line; Mosquito Fleets; Hulks and Lighters. And, under “Making History” … Sealing and Whaling; Ghosts at the Rip; West Coast Mysteries; Smugglers; Shenandoah Incident etc etc.

    Even to keep you going for a few wintery nights and at least one round of “Mastermind”

    Loney summarising Victoria … and there is a lot of it!

    $30.00

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  • A Living Voice of the Living Bush – William Ricketts – Wonderfully Annotated and Signed.

    A Living Voice of the Living Bush – William Ricketts – Wonderfully Annotated and Signed.

    First and only edition published by the Victorian Forestry Commission in 1965 celebrating the incredible art of William Ricketts. Larger format soft cover, 24 pages with sixteen colour illustrations. A bit marked and aged on the cover, clean inside, forgive any deficiencies for his manuscript additions.

    The annotation on the first blank page reads as follows … “From my Mountain of Remembrance where we remember with love everything that was created … [followed by his creation symbol underscored with his signature] … The Prayer of the Mountain – The Prayer of the Forest – My prayer – all are one Prayer … “

    Added in different hand the name of the receiver.

    William Ricketts (1898-1993) misunderstood and maybe he misunderstood … regardless he made beautiful objects. If it offends, well then that’s a bit sad. He was a religious man and felt the earth and whether he misrepresented and misplaced .. well that gives a job for the academic critics. Just enjoy them. They were badly damaged in a massive storm a couple of years ago … we hope they have been resurrected.

    In the 1950’s he spent quite some time with the Pitjantjatjara and Arrente people in Central Australia … they inspired his work among the trees in the Dandenong Mountains.

    William Ricketts – A rare annotation we believe.

    $60.00

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  • The Henty Journals – A Record of Farming, Whaling and Shipping in Portland Bay, 1834-1839. – Lynnette Peel

    The Henty Journals – A Record of Farming, Whaling and Shipping in Portland Bay, 1834-1839. – Lynnette Peel

    A super copy of this first edition well produced book published by The Miegunyah Press in 1966.

    Large octavo, 297 pages, nicely illustrated. A fine copy and as always with the Miegunyah Press nothing spared, printed on Pageantry Text Creme paper, limited to a thousand copies.

    The Henty family left Sussex in England in the 1820’s to make their life in Australia. With farms first in Western Australia and Tasmania they settled at Portland Bay in Victoria. Edward Henty is recognised as the first permanent settler in Victoria. Diaries written by Edward and his brother Francis are a prized possession of the State Library of Victoria. They form the basis of this book. Brother Thomas settled at Launceston in Tasmania and bred Marino sheep often selling to the Macarthurs of Camden. Not restricting their activities to the land they undertook maritime and whaling adventures and sadly had a hand in reducing the population of the Southern Right Whale.

    The Diaries of the brothers Henty – a genuine glimpse into life in the early 19thC.

    $80.00

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  • Victoria’s Forgotten Goldfield – Christie and  Gray – Signed by Christie – First Edition 1981

    Victoria’s Forgotten Goldfield – Christie and Gray – Signed by Christie – First Edition 1981

    … A History of the Dargo, Crooked River Goldfield.

    Super little book and a very details and oft curious story of the goldfield at Dargo, in Eastern Victoria.

    Softcover, small format, 136 pages, with illustration, tables of information etc a nice production. Signed on the title by Christie, very good condition albeit the back cover is marked at edges, but with no comprise internally which is bright and clean.

    After discovery in 1865, gold recovery peaked in 1868 at 7,652 ounces and soon fell away. Despite this brief moment of glory as with other gold fields it spurred an enormous amount of interest and development in the area. We are off tomorrow to look at a spot not too far away.

    Well honed history of one of the lesser known and more curious gold finds in Australia

    $35.00

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  • The Exploration of Australia – Albert Calvert – First Edition 1895

    The Exploration of Australia – Albert Calvert – First Edition 1895

    A pretty good copy of the first edition of Calvert’s book much admired and coveted in any collection on the subject. A compendium volume was issued a year later due to the success of this work.

    Published by George Philip, London in 1895. Small quarto, 26cm by 21 cm, quarter bound cream buckram (simulated vellum) over deep blue buckram with gild titles and line decoration. Aged to spine as usual, corners rubbed. Pretty good internally the large folding map repaired close tear. Internally a little browned due to the spongy nature of the paper, really quite clean throughout; viii, 26 pages. Frontispiece of Dampier, 16 plates. A solid book 1.4kgs.

    The super map is 87cm by 72cm with the routes of the likes of Sturt, Mitchel, great, Winnecke etc marked

    Albert Calvert carried out his own explorations often influenced by gold exploration and mainly in western Australia. He was a prolific writer about Australia partly to fund his exploratory activities. He had previously published ‘The Discovery of Australia” concerning the early maritime activities of the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, British etc. In the Preface to this work he describes his pain in working with the early accounts, in terms of their completeness, reliability etc. In this work he is more at ease in that he has the first hand accounts of the various explorers .. on land he mapped out each day of their activities … hence the huge map included.

    Exploration covered include in the maritime, Dampier; the Dutch; Cook; Flinders; Phillip; Baudin, Bougainville … in the interior, Wentworth; Sturt; Mitchell; Macquarie; George Grey; Eyre etc

    Calvert’s collectable account on the exploration of Australia with valuable map.

    $150.00

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