Highlights

An American second mate's eyewitness account, embellished with his illustrations, of China in the wake of the First Opium War. Venturing east on a Jardine, Matheson specie and opium runner, he becomes an old China hand and an astute observer, writing of early colonial Hong Kong and Shanghai, trade arrangements, and the sights and sounds of the coast.

Morris (William) THE GOLDEN LEGEND of Master William Caxton done anew. In three volumes. Kelmscott Press, London, 1892. Edition limited to 500 copies. *The Golden Legend was originally intended as the first production of the Kelmscott Press, but due to production difficulties it became the seventh. In July 1890, William Morris had purchased a copy of one of Wynkyn de Worde's reprints of the Caxton translation. Originally compiled by the Archbishop of Milan, Jacobus a Voragine or de Varagine (c. 1230-1298), the book is a repository of the lives and miracles of saints and martyrs. $20,000.00

First edition, one of 1,000 copies of the standard issue text volumes, of "the most outstanding book on the coastal exploration of Australia... Such is the historical importance of this monumental work that no general collection of Australian books can be considered complete without it" (Wantrup).

Sparkling illuminations, fine condition. Book of Hours leaf, c.1490, France. Revered Psalm: “De Profundis”

Gould, John. London: Author, 1837-1838. Large octavo, 73 hand-coloured lithographic plates by and after Elizabeth Gould, with accompanying letterpress. A single leaf printed prospectus for this work and a single leaf printed prospectus for the 'Birds of Europe' at the front of part one. 8pp. appendix 'Description of New Species of Australian Birds' at end of part four. Original green cloth-backed printed paper covered boards, some wear to the boards (mainly part one), the bookplates of John Gerard Heckscher and John Eliot Thayer.

A unique calligraphic manuscript copy of Arnold's poem "The Forsaken Merman" by the renowned Scottish artist Dorothy Carleton Smyth (1880-1933), a beautiful example of her juvenile work, each of the exquisitely rendered illustrations signed with her "Dodo" emblem. This copy was bound at the Mayfield Binderies, Heaton Moor, located just outside of Stockport, Greater Manchester.

Collection of Thirteen Original Photos of New South Wales, Including Views of Sydney Harbour, Bondi Beach, Hacking River, Shoalhaven River, and Three Interesting Images of the Parramatta River Taken on the Day of the Scull Boat Race between George Towns and Jim Stanbury in 1905 or 1906. Ca. 1900s.

Limited edition, number 22 of 50 copies printed on japon for the Guild of Women Binders and finely bound in their workshop. The bookseller Frank Karslake established the bindery in 1898 as "a way of publicising and promoting the sale of books bound by women" (Tidcombe, p. 27).

KABERRY, Phyllis. Aboriginal Woman, Sacred and Profane. With an Introduction by Professor A.P. Elkin. A study of the Aboriginal women of Australia. London, Routledge, 1939. 8vo. xxxii+294. B/w frontispiece and illustrations, map and bibliography. Original bright cloth in dustwrapper (some slight repairs) but an impressively fresh, near fine copy. First edition. The first major anthropological study of Aboriginal women.

London, Edward Stanford, 1879. Octavo, mounted photographic frontispiece 'Trout Pond at Ercildoune', folding map, index, very good in bright original decorated terracotta cloth, lettered in gilt, vignette of a salmon in silver on front board, lemon china clay endpapers, small lozenge binder's ticket on rear pastedown. 'Third Edition', preceded by a paper in the Zoological and Acclimatization Society of Victoria's 1878 annual report and reprinted by Sands & McDougall, as THE CALIFORNIAN SALMON, in the same year. Author’s presentation copy.

Brown, Robertus. Normibergae: Leonardi Schrag, 1827 second edition. Octavo, Contemporary half calf and marbled boards, all edges coloured, a few light spots, very scarce. The Prodromus is considered a masterpiece of botanical literature and "has a two-fold importance in the history of systematic botany. Its primary purpose was to record succinctly the plants of Australia collected by Robert Brown himself in 1802 and 1805 when naturalist on Flinders' voyage together with plants collected earlier by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander on Cook's first voyage (1768-71.)