lamdha books -
Catalogue of books on Australian colonial history

Click on the small images at right to see a larger picture

92950 Anonymous A Month in the Bush of Australia - Australiana Facsimile Editions No. 114 Journal of One of a Party of Gentlemen Who Recently Travelled from Sydney to Port Philip with Some Remarks on the Present State of the Farming Establishments and Society in the Settled Parts of the Argyle Country. Libraries Board of South Australia, Adelaide SA, 1965. Facsimile reprint: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine-titling; 60pp. Mild wear; boards rubbed with some marks and sunning; offset to the endpapers; previous owner's ink inscription to the flyleaf; text block edges lightly toned and spotted. No dustwrapper. Very good. "The increasing interest which that part of the Public, who have directed their attention to our Australian possessions, take in every thing that relates to them, as well as the anxious desire of those who have intentions of Emigrating, to know any little particulars of the modes of the Country they are about to sojourn in, make it probable that a "Journal of a Journey lately made to Port Philip overland from Sydney", by a party of Gentlemen long resident in the Colony, will not be unacceptable. It was intended only for the circle of the Writer's own Family, and, in the liberty of giving it to a wider circulation, unknown to its Author, must be found whatever apology is necessary for its imperfections, being a literal copy of the original..." Click here to order $35

98955 Barry, John Vincent The Life and Death of John Price Melbourne University Press, Carlton South Vic., 1964. Octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 204pp., with a monochrome frontispiece and many plates likewise. Minor wear; offsetting to the half-title page and mild spotting to the text block edges. Well-rubbed dustwrapper with lightly browned spine; some slight insect damage to front flap-turn and spine panel; mild edgewear; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. "This study of John Price admirably complements the earlier study of Alexander Maconochie. Having told the story of one of the legendary humanitarian heroes of what Sheldon Glueck has called 'one of the blackest chapters in the lexicon of man's inhumanity to man', it is fitting that Sir John should complete the picture by giving the other side of the story. And in John Price, who fathered a legend of an altogether different kind, what were in fact the dominant principles of Nineteenth Century penology were vividly embodied. Yet, just as with Maconochie, Sir John conscientiously acknowledged and analysed his weaknesses, so with Price he scrupulously presents the evidence in his favour. Thus, he cites such contemporary witnesses as the Military Commander of Norfolk Island, who asserted that Price 'was the finest character I have met with in a wide experience', and the ex-convict who wrote of Price as 'temperate, strict and judicious'. Moreover, he is careful to point out - what is too often, ignored by historians regaling their readers with the horrors of the past - that, in exercising harsh disciplinary control, Price was carrying out an allotted task and, as Sir John says, 'it is idle to censure him for doing what his superiors required of him'. But, after all this has been said, there remains incontestable evidence that Price not only far exceeded what was required of him but also exceeded the law. For the law conferred on him no authority to torture, or torment, the prisoners in his charge. And, as Sir John says, 'the evidence that he did both is too massive to be ignored'. So there will be few readers who will question the final verdict that 'on the whole of the record, John Price was a cruel man'. Furthermore, Sir John Barry confesses that, having long been fascinated and disturbed by human cruelty, Price holds for him 'more than an historical, or legendary, significance'. So, in the concluding chapter, he sets down what he refers to as 'my puzzled reflections on the enigma of this aspect of man's nature'. It is an illuminating, if inevitably inconclusive, essay; and it illuminates more than its subject matter. For it tells us something about the author, that it is cruelty which he finds puzzling. Others, more misanthropic perhaps, may feel that it is Maconochie's benignity rather which needs explaining. However that may be, this is a scholarly, lucid and fascinating work and a welcome addition to the available literature about an era which has, until recently, been badly neglected by serious historians." - Gordon Hawkins. Click here to order $40

82416 Baxter, Carol Breaking the Bank: signed copy An Extraordinary Colonial Robbery Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, 2008. Signed paperback, octavo; 350pp., colour plates. Minimal wear; fine. It was the largest bank robbery in Australian history. On Sunday 14 September 1828, thieves tunnelled through a sewage drain into the vault of Sydney's Bank of Australia and stole 14,000 pound in notes and cash - the equivalent of $20 million in today's currency. This audacious group of convicts not only defied the weekly exhortation 'thou shalt not steal!', they targeted the bank owned by the colony's self-anointed nobility. Delighted at this affront to their betters, Sydney's largely criminal and ex-criminal population did all they could to undermine the authorities' attempts to catch the robbers and retrieve the spoils. While the desperate bank directors offered increasingly large rewards and the government officers cast longing looks at the gallows, the robbers continued to elude detection. Then one day... With a rich cast of characters who refused to abase themselves to the establishment, this meticulously researched and fast-paced history tells the story of the daring Bank of Australia robbery and of the scheming robbers, greedy receivers and unfortunate suspects whose lives were irrevocably changed by this outrageous crime. Click here to order $22

89129 Bladen, F.M. (ed.) Historical Records of New South Wales, Volume 1 Part 1: Cook 1762 - 1780 Landsdown Slattery & Co, Sydney, 1978. Facsimile reprint of 1893 edition. Hardcover, octavo; brown boards with blind stamped borders and gilt spine titling, tan endpapers; 526pp., monochrome portrait frontispiece and monochrome illustrations; appendices; fold out reproductions of Entries in the Log-Books of the Endeavour including the first entry still extant in Cook's Log written when the Endeavour was off Cape Palliser in New Zealand; four facsimiles from Hick's journal entry related to Botany Bay; complete reproduction of Cook's log; much additional material and index. Minor wear; slight foxing to prelims; browned text block and page edges. Brown illustrated card dustwrapper with mildly faded spine and some scraping to corners and head of spine and a few small scrapes otherwise. Very good to near fine and covered in protective film with white paper backing. Click here to order $100

35890 Bladen, F.M. (ed.) Historical Records of New South Wales, volume 7: Bligh and Macquarie 1809-1811 Landsdown Slattery & Co, Sydney, 1979. Hardcover, octavo; brown boards with blind stamped borders and gilt spine titling, tan endpapers; 690pp., fold-out colour plates of plans of Parramatta Granary, Military Barracks and Sydney Hospital with additional fold-out plan of Sydney - showing common, 1811; index. Minor wear; slight foxing to prelims; browned text block and page edges. Brown illustrated card dustwrapper with mildly faded spine and some scraping to corners and head of spine. Very good to near fine and covered in protective film with white paper backing. Click here to order $100

208580 Cannon, Michael Perilous Voyages to the New Land - revised, expanded edition Experiences of Australian Pioneer Families on the High Seas Today's Australia Publishing Company, Mornington Vic., 1997. Reprint: quarto; hardcover, with upper board titles and decorative endpapers; 272pp., with many monochrome illustrations and 8pp. of colour plates. Moderate wear; a little shaken and rolled; spine extremities softened; some minor spotting to the text block edges. Dustwrapper is lightly edgeworn; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Accounts of immigrant ships to Australia 1840-1850 that reveal often harrowing conditions and experiences, with storms, rickets, disease, irresponsible captains and wild passengers. Chapters also discuss Irish orphan immigration and attempts at reform. With contemporary illustrations, five documentary appendixes, bibliography and index. Click here to order $90

202969 Collins, David An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales With Remarks on the Dispositions, Customs, Manners &c. of the Native Inhabitants of that Country. To which are added, some particulars of New Zealand; compiled, by permission, from the Mss. of Lieutenant-Governor King. By David Collins, Esquire, late Judge Advocate and Secretary of the Colony. T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, London, 1798. Quarto; hardcover, half-bound in calf with marbled boards, with gilt titles on a tan label in gilt decorated compartments between five raised bands; 680pp. [i-xxpp. + i-xxxviiipp. + ipp. (title) + 1 Blank + 1-617pp. + 1 Blank + ipp. (list of plates) + 1 Blank], on large paper, all edges dyed yellow, with a map frontispiece, a folding map, 19 engraved monochrome plates and 4 in-text illustrations likewise. Moderate wear; boards and edges well-rubbed and scuffed; spine label scraped; minor insect damage to the spine head; text block edges lightly toned and top edge mildly dusted; previous owner's name printed on a slip of paper tipped-in to the front pastedown; retailer's bookplate to the front pastedown; previous owner's ink inscriptions to the front pastedown and rear free endpaper; pages lightly embrowned with mild scattered foxing throughout; folding chart lightly stained and creased with some edgewear. Very good. David Collins' "Account" is the earliest history of Australia as an English colonial settlement and provides the most detailed descriptions of the voyage of the First Fleet and the establishment of the colony. It is a rich narrative journal with informed insights and is replete with many illustrations of the country and the local flora and fauna. It also contains an unusually sympathetic perspective regarding the indigenous population in the wake of the British invasion. The book was first published in 1798 as a single volume with many fine engraved illustrations, taken from water-colour sketches by Edward Dayes, which were themselves executed from drawings done by the convict-artist Thomas Watling. A second volume containing further historical details concerning the colony - including the voyages of Flinders and Bass - was issued in 1802 and forms the companion work to this one (although it is much more difficult to find). After his death, Collins' wife Maria - who navigated the publication of the initial two volumes (including a German translation) - produced a reissue of the two books as a single work in 1804. Ferguson, in his Bibliography, has this to say: "Collins went to Botany Bay with the First Fleet as Judge-Advocate. He was also Secretary to Governor Phillip and had unique opportunities of observing the conditions of and transactions in the infant settlement. His record is consequently most valuable and trustworthy. The illustrations were engraved from water-colour drawings made by Edward Dayes from sketches made in the colony, apparently by a convict artist, Thomas Watling. The second or supplementary volume was issued in 1802, and contains the voyage of Flinders and Bass in which Bass Strait was discovered. This was printed from Bass's own journal, which was subsequently lost, and has never since been found." (Ferguson 263 & 350; Davidson, p. 90; Wantrup 19-20). This particular copy of the initial volume was previously owned by Sir Joseph Palmer Abbott, the distinguished Australian politician and solicitor. Click here to order $7000

99238 Currey, C.H. The Transportation, Escape and Pardoning of Mary Bryant Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1963. First edition. Hardcover, octavo; black boards with gilt spine titling and pink endpapers; 62pp., top edges dyed red. Owner's name. One or two scattered spots on early pages; toned and spotted text block edges. Red and green illustrated dustwrapper with a few scrapes; rubbing and scraping along fore-edges and spine panel edges with chipping at panel extremities and corners; long crease with adjoining scrape and tiny missing segment to lower front edge. Very good and wrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film with white paper backing. In 1786 Mary Bryant [nee Broad] was convicted of assault and robbery and sentenced to be hanged. She was subsequently transported to Sydney. In 1791 she escaped the convict settlement with her two children, her husband, William Bryant and seven other felons. Click here to order $23

33330 Easty, John Memorandum of the Transactions of a Voyage from England to Botany Bay, 1787-1793 A First Fleet Journal Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales with Angus & Robertson Ltd., Sydney NSW, 1965. Quarto; hardcover, with gilt spine-titling; 188pp., with a monochrome frontispiece. Minor wear; very faint spotting to upper text block edge; mild rubbing to lower board corners. Dustwrapper with two small tears on the upper edge; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good to near fine. Easty, a private marine with very little education, was by no means a model soldier but rather, one who drank and disobeyed with the best of them, receiving his share of floggings as a result. With unpractised hand, he scrawls and splashes his way across the page in this memoir, noting down the trivia and tragedy of the day-to-day existence in the new settlement. Click here to order $60

58178 Estensen, Miriam The Life of George Bass Surgeon and Sailor of the Enlightenment Allen & Unwin, Sydney NSW, 2005. First edition. Octavo; hardcover, with bronze spine-titling; 259pp., with maps and 8 pages of full-colour and monochrome plates. Minor wear. Dustwrapper sunned along the spine panel. Near fine. The brilliant and charismatic Bass embodied the Age of Enlightenment. He was a man of intense intellectual curiosity, of wide-ranging talents and contradictions as well. He had friends among Sydney's political 'radicals' but was also of the establishment. He was a skilled surgeon who preferred navigation to medicine, a naval officer who put his career on hold in an attempt to make a fortune and a man deeply in love but who abandoned his 'beloved Bess Bass' for the rewards of an adventurous voyage into commerce. A richly detailed account of the life and mysterious disappearance of a gifted and complicated man. Click here to order $25

200529 Evans, Susanna Historic Brisbane and its Early Artists: A Pictorial History - signed Comprising Paintings and Drawings that Record the Development of Brisbane from Early Convict Settlement to the End of the Victorian Era with Biographies of their Artists Boolarong Publications, Ascot Qld., 1982. Quarto; hardcover, with decorated endpapers; 119pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; slightly rolled; some mild scraping to the spine extremities and board edges; text block edges spotted; an ink stain to the top joint; a bookplate signed in ink by the author with a dedication by the previous owner to the verso of the flyleaf. Dustwrapper mildly rubbed and edgeworn with sunning to the spine panel; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Laid in: two photographs of topical interest with a note. Susanna de Vries (nee Evans) has been a collector and restorer of antiquarian prints and drawings ever since she attended a cataloguing and restoration course held in London, under the auspices of the Victoria and Albert Museum. On her arrival in Brisbane in 1975, she was fascinated by Brisbane's early Colonial architecture and her training in librarianship provided valuable assistance in discovering the whereabouts, in Australia and overseas, of the paintings of Brisbane's architectural heritage. Research into the lives of the artists behind these works - many previously unknown - took over three years and involved the examination of art collections in Queensland, New South Wales, Great Britain and Canada. This unique and informative book has been long awaited by collectors and those interested in early Australian paintings as well as the historic and architectural development of Brisbane. Click here to order $35

81769 Evatt, H.V. Rum Rebellion A Study of the Overthrow of Governor Bligh by John Macarthur and the New South Wales Corps Angus & Robertson, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 1944. Fifth edition. Hardcover; octavo; blue cloth boards with gilt spine-titling; 285pp., with a full-colour frontispiece. Boards showing light wear and bumped corners; prize bookplate to front endpaper; text block edges heavily toned. Small missing segment on dustwrapper head of spine and chipping at corners, small tear on upper rear panel; browning especially along spine panel and mild scraping to fore-edges. Very good with wrapper now protected in archival film and white paper backing. The early days of the NSW Colony were a mess of politics, policy, and privateering. Without a local currency, most transactions were paid for in allotments of rum, given to convicts and soldiers alike after their day of duty. Passing your allotment on to someone in payment for goods or services, became the currency of the day, and was kept track of by means of scrawled chits and nebulous memories. However, the manufacture and distribution of rum in the Colony was being watched by greedy eyes, and the idea that if one controlled the rum, one controlled the state, crystalised into distinct possibility. Efforts, on the one hand, to establish and, on the other, to deny monopolies led to a coup d'etat and the driving-out of office of Governor Bligh - he of the Mutiny - whose irascible and inflexible nature made him unsuitable for the delicate negotiations before him. This is one of the earliest and best accounts of the insurrection and a highly entertaining overview of the events. Click here to order $30

75034 Falkiner, Suzanne, & Alan Oldfield Lizard Island The Journey of Mary Watson Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest NSW, 2000. Quarto; hardcover; 235pp., with many colour illustrations. Minor wear. Edgewear to dustwrapper; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good to near fine. Mary Watson was 21 years old and had been married less than two years when, in early October 1881, after mainland Aborigines had attacked two workmen at her absent husband's beche-de-mer station, she set herself adrift in a cut-down ship's water tank with her baby, Ferrier, and a wounded Chinese servant, Ah Sam. They died of thirst on an island over 60 kilometres away, some eight days after their departure. At Cooktown it was assumed that Mary Watson had been kidnapped and killed and, when the bodies were found some time later, they were returned for a funeral which became Cooktown's biggest public event, uniting the town in appreciation of her undaunted spirit. Mary Watson, whose diary describing their last days was found with the remains, became an emblem of pioneer heroism for many Queenslanders. In the meantime, however, a terrible retribution had been visited on the local indigenous people, whom the police were quick to assume had been responsible for the deaths. Click here to order $35

32735 Gold, Geoffrey Eureka Rebellion Beneath the Southern Cross Rigby, Adelaide SA, 1977. Large quarto hardcover; blue boards with white spine titling, decorated blue and white endpapers; 119pp., colour and monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; a few scrapes on board corners and edges; spotting to text block edges; dustwrapper spine slightly faded. Very good to near fine and wrapper now covered in protective film with white paper backing. 30th of November 1854, and the diggers on the Ballarat goldfields met to debate the tyranny of the British colonial government. Captain Ross of Toronto raised the Southern Cross battle flag which he designed for the rebel diggers and Peter Lalor, an Irishman, was elected Commander-in-chief upon the motion of Italian Rafaello Carboni and Prussian Edward Thonen. Some five hundred armed diggers stepped forward, electrified by the circumstances, as Lalor knelt before the flag and exclaimed in a firm and measured tone: "We swear by the Southern Cross to stand truly by each other, and fight to defend our rights and liberties!" The diggers then formed into battalions and pledged their allegiance to their new flag, the "Australian flag of independence"... A new legend was born. The rebellion at the Eureka Stockade had grown, from scattered agitation for democratic reform to an armed uprising in defence of liberty and freedom, and for the independence of Australia. Its spirit and objectives have lived on, inspiring new generations of Australians as an heroic and patriotic symbol. Click here to order $30

202048 Heard, Dora (ed.) The Journal of Charles O'Hara Booth - limited edition Commandant of the Port Arthur Penal Settlement The Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Sandy Bay TAS, 1981. Octavo; hardcover, full cloth with gilt spine titles; 298pp., with a colour frontispiece, maps and 10pp. of colour and monochrome plates. Mild wear; text block edges lightly spotted; faint offset to the preliminaries. Dustwrapper lightly rubbed and edgeworn. Very good. Published in an edition of 1000 copies only. Charles O'Hara Booth (1800-1851), soldier and penal administrator in Van Diemen's Land, served as officer in the British Army from 1816, his service including periods in India and the West Indies. Arriving in Van Diemen's Land in 1833, he was appointed commandant of the Port Arthur penal settlement, a position he held until 1844. Obliged by failing health to seek a less-demanding occupation, O'Hara Booth was, until his death in 1851, Superintendent of the Queen's Orphan Schools, New Town, near Hobart. Booth began his journal in 1815 at the age of fourteen and continued to record his activities until his marriage in 1838. The bulk of the material contained in this work relates to his life at Port Arthur in Van Diemen's Land, entries which were recorded almost daily. Click here to order $50

205124 Howitt, William (Introduction by Prof. S.J. Butlin) Land, Labour, and Gold - Australian Historical Reprints series or, Two Years in Victoria with Visits to Sydney and Van Diemen's Land, Volumes I and II Sydney University Press, 1972. Facsimile reprint: octavo; hardcover, with endpaper maps; 419pp. [397pp. + 22pp.]. Mild wear; slightly shaken; spine heel lightly softened; text block edges toned with some light spotting; some faint spotting to the preliminaries. Dustwrapper rubbed and lightly edgeworn; sunned along the spine with some marks and a small tear to the spine panel head; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. Literary historian Charles Reade described William Howitt as a "traveller with a painter's eye". A noted, well-versed author and journalist, Howitt received an education in Germany and England. When news of the gold discoveries reached England however, Howitt saw a chance, to not only visit his brother in Melbourne, but to join the rush with his two sons. Australian literature was given one its more important histories through this venture. A collection of letters written to Howitt's wife and contemporaries in England, "Land Labour and Gold: or two years on Victoria with visits to Sydney and Van Dieman's Land" provides a vital insight into life during the gold rush of the early 1850s. Howitt's focus on the Bendigo diggings unravels many tales from that era. Click here to order $65

14681 Hughes-d'Aeth, Tony Paper Nation The Story of the Picturesque Atlas of Australasia 1886-1888 Melbourne University Press, Carlton South Vic., 2001. Quarto; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 262pp with many monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; binding slightly cocked; mild wear to board corners; faint spotting to upper text block edges; previous owner's ink inscription. Near fine in like dustwrapper. With the approach of the first centenary of European settlement in Australia, a team of writers and artists was assembled to produce a monumental illustrated history of the Australasian colonies. The massive, three-volume "Picturesque Atlas of Australasia" was first published in Sydney between 1886 and 1888, and sold a remarkable 50,000 copies. The story of the conceptualisation and publication of the "Picturesque Atlas", as told by Tony Hughes-d'Aeth, offers us a window through which to see and understand late Nineteenth-Century Australian culture. As a history, the Atlas evokes the sentiments of an emerging nationalism; as a snapshot of 1880s Australia, it reveals a community acutely aware of finding itself in the midst of rapid modernisation. Click here to order $40

202967 Hunter, Capt. John An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island Including the Journals of Governors Phillip and King, Since the Publication of Phillip's Voyage. With an Abridged Account of the New Discoveries in the South Seas. By John Hunter Esqr. Post Captain in His Majesty's Navy. To Which is prefixed A Life of the Author, And Illustrated with a Map of the Country by Lieut. Dawes And Other Embellishments. John Stockdale, London, 1793. Octavo; hardcover, half-bound in calf with marbled boards, with gilt spine titles on red morocco labels between five raised bands decorated in gilt; 538pp. [2 Blank + xxivpp. + 17-525pp. + 1p. (advert) + 2 Blank], on laid paper with marbled edges, with a monochrome engraved portrait frontispiece, an illustrated title page ("Captain Hunter offering fish to an Aboriginal Woman"), a folding chart of New South Wales and a folding plate likewise. Moderate wear; boards and edges rubbed; joints scraped; crackling to the spine leather; spine head lightly pulled; light scattered foxing and mild offset throughout; some toning to the map edges; previous owner's ink inscription to the front pastedown. Very good. Originally published in a quarto format in 1793, a decision was made to release a smaller version of the Journal later in the same year, which was intended "sufficiently [to] gratify the curiosity of those who may not have leisure to peruse, or are not desirous of purchasing, the quarto edition". The second issue required some re-thinking of the original format and the engraved title page was printed slightly too large for the new layout and had to be trimmed before insertion, as is the case here. This condensed version of the original release is far scarcer than the quarto issue and, like the original, contains a plate depicting a group of aborigines - "A Family of New South Wales" - which was engraved by William Blake after a sketch by Governor King. Blake has idealised the features of the figures giving them a dignity absent from King's plain sketch, which is in the collection of the Sydney's Mitchell Library. (Ferguson 153; Wantrup 14a). This copy of the work was previously owned by Sir Joseph Palmer Abbott, the distinguished Australian politician and solicitor. Click here to order $3500

74456 [J. Walch & Sons] Walch's Tasmanian Almanac for 1884 Being bissextile, or leap year, the forty-seventh and forty-eighth years of the reign of her present majesty Queen Victoria, and the eightieth year of the settlement of the colony. J. Walch & Sons, Hobart TAS, 1884. Octavo; full crimson morocco, with gilt spine and upper board titling, blind-stamped board decorations and endpaper advertisements; 290pp., with 101pp. of advertisements and a folding map of Tasmania. Shaken; boards are well-worn and stained; gilt titling has been almost completely worn off the spine; front joint is quite tender, but holding; some offset to the endpapers; mild toning to the pages and text block edges. No dustwrapper. Else very good. Click here to order $100

96780 Jordan, Robert The Convict Theatres of Early Australia 1788-1840 Currency House Inc., Strawberry Hills NSW, 2002. Quarto; hardcover, with gilt spine titles and endpaper maps; 370pp., with monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; some spots to the text block fore-edge. Dustwrapper with some mild edgewear (now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film). Near fine. Robert Jordan's research brings to life, in brilliant form, the shadowy figures that created the Australian convict colony's first entertainment. Fascinatingly, these theatres were not, as had been thought, the initiative of soldiers and settlers nostalgic for home, but of hard-living convicts serving time at the end of the world. Here is a society creating its own rules, its own class system based on enterprise and exploitation. The book analyses the impact on the theatres of the convicts' tastes and origins, the temperaments of powerful individuals and the shifting views of penal servitude. As the centres of power changed, the theatres quickly became fields in which battles for supremacy were fought, between convicts and authority and between friends and enemies of the participants. Robert Jordan has combed through British and colonial newspapers, official and private correspondence, court records, statistics and logbooks to uncover these stories. He reveals previously unknown theatre ventures and greatly extends our knowledge of familiar ones, notably Robert Sidaway's Sydney Theatre and the Emu Plains and Norfolk Island playhouses. In the process we come to know a gallery of colourful characters, from Sara McCann - London madam and comforter of a royal duke - to James Lawrence - cardsharp, standover man, thief, liar and professional actor. A substantial appendix provides biographies of the 42 convicts and soldiers known to have been active in the theatres before 1800. Click here to order $50

86568 Karskens, Grace The Colony A History of Early Sydney Allen & Unwin, Sydney NSW, 2009. Octavo; hardcover; 678pp., with colour plates and monochrome illustrations. Moderate wear; board corners scraped and worn with rubbing to edges; binding very slightly cocked; light spotting to text block edges. Tear and a very small scrape to the bottom of the upper panel of the dustwrapper; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. The Colony is the story of the marvellously contrary, endlessly energetic early years of Sydney. It is an intimate account of the transformation of a campsite in a beautiful cove to the town that later became Australia's largest and best-known city. From the sparkling beaches to the foothills of the Blue Mountains, Grace Karskens skilfully reveals how landscape shaped the lives of the original Aboriginal inhabitants and newcomers alike. She traces the ways in which relationships between the colonial authorities and ordinary men and women broke with old patterns, and the ways that settler and Aboriginal histories became entwined. She uncovers the ties between the burgeoning township and its rural hinterland expanding along the river systems of the Cumberland Plain. This is a landmark account of the birthplace of modern Australia, and a fascinating and richly textured narrative of people and place. Click here to order $50

215383 Landsborough, William (Introduction by Valmai Hankel) Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria In Search of Burke & Wills Friends of the State Library of South Australia, Adelaide SA, 2000. Facsimile reprint: octavo; hardcover, full cloth decorated in blind with gilt spine-titling, with a folding map in a pocket to the rear pastedown; 103pp., with a monochrome portrait frontispiece. Minor wear. No dustwrapper as issued. Near fine. "Everyone has heard of the explorers Burke and Wills, who died when attempting to cross the Australian continent in 1861, but few will know of William Landsborough, a quiet unassuming man who in the middle of the 19th century explored and opened up vast areas of land in north-eastern Australia to settlement and farming. He was considered such a good bushman and explorer that he was chosen to lead one of the four search parties sent out to look for Burke and Wills in 1861. In the process of this search he became the first man to cross Australia from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Melbourne. Adding even more interest to this already fascinating story, is the account of William's boat trip north to the Gulf of Carpentaria to commence the search, during which he survived shipwreck and mutiny on one of the Barrier Reef islands. In his day, Landsborough's exploits were feted but now he is largely unknown, ironically perhaps because he was such a capable bushman and explorer that he lived to tell the tale." Click here to order $100

10602 Leichhardt, F.W. Ludwig (M. Aurousseau, ed.) The Letters of F.W. Ludwig Leichhardt - Three volumes Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, London, 1968. Three volumes: octavo; hardcover, blind rules to boards with gilt spine titling and upper board decoration; 1,174pp, with Appendices and an Index (vol. 3). Minor wear; slightly faded spine; lightly toned and spotted upper text block edges. Dustwrappers with faded and browned spine panels; one or two spots and marks with slight browning and wear to edges and corners; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good to near fine. Click here to order $100

87450 The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament Historical Records of Australia - 36 Volumes Series I: Governors' Despatches to and from England ; Series III: Despatches and Papers Relating to the Settlement of the States; Series IV: Legal Papers William Applegate Gullick, Government Printer, Sydney, 1914-1925; Australian Government Printer, 1997; Melbourne University Press, 2003 & 2006. Octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titles. Series I: 26 volumes. Vol. I (reprint, 1971): xxvii + 822pp.; vol. II (1914): xx + 796pp; vol. III (1915): xxi + 863pp; vol. IV (1915): xvii + 758pp; vol. V (1915): xiv + 909pp; vol. VI (1916): xxxvii + 800pp; vol. VII (1916): xx + 908pp; vol. VIII (1916): xviii + 739pp; vol. IX (1917): xxi + 967pp; vol. X (1917): xvii + 937pp; vol. XI (1917): xxvi + 1039pp; vol. XII (1919): xvii + 911pp; vol. XIII (1920): xviii + 947pp; vol. XIV (1922): xxi + 1024pp; vol. XV (1922): xiv + 981pp; vol. XVI (1923): x + 958pp; vol. XVII (1923) xvii + 859pp; vol. XVIII (1923): xxviii + 926pp; vol. XIX (1923): xii + 891pp; vol. XX (1924): xxiv + 950pp; vol. XXI (1924): xiv + 849pp; vol. XXII (1924): xvii + 923pp; vol. XXIII (1925): xviii + 937pp; vol. XXIV (1925): xvii + 936pp; vol. XXV (1925): xiv + 857pp; vol. XXVI (1925): xvii + 873pp. Series III: 9 volumes. Vol. I (1921): xxxiii + 920pp; vol. II (1921): xxi + 8744pp; vol. III (1921): xvi + 1052pp; vol. IV (1921): xviii + 975pp; vol. V (1922): xxi + 959pp; vol. VI (1923): xxi + 959pp; vol. VII (1997 - Resumed Series): lxxxvi + 930pp; vol. VIII (2003): cviii + 1379pp; vol. IX (2006): cxxxix + 1091pp. Series IV: 1 volume. Vol. I (1922): xlv + 1027pp. Minor wear; owner's name stamp to front endpapers and text block edges; foxed preliminaries; spotted and toned text block edges; series I, vol. XIX has small tape repairs to the final pages. Very good copy of the complete set. Series II never issued. Click here to order $2500

215382 McDouall Stuart, John Explorations Across the Continent of Australia, with Charts, 1861-62 Friends of the State Library of South Australia, Adelaide SA, 1996. Facsimile reprint: octavo; hardcover, full cloth decorated in blind with gilt spine-titling; 103pp., with a folding chart. Minor wear. No dustwrapper as issued. Near fine. Stuart and his team left Adelaide in 1859, returning four years later after having crossed the continent from south to the north and back. Their travels helped to reveal the real nature of Australia's red heart, and yet their efforts were all but eclipsed by the tragic failure that was the Burke and Wills Expedition which set out into oblivion during the time that Stuart and his men were away. Stuart was not well-known or respected before his achievements and little concrete is known of him; this facsimile reprint of his journal helps clarify the smokey image we have of the "Napoleon of Explorers" as he was known, and brings him back to our attention. Click here to order $100

205873 Mackaness, George Admiral Arthur Phillip Founder of New South Wales, 1738-1814 Angus & Robertson Ltd., Sydney NSW, 1937. First edition: royal octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titles and blind-ruled upper board, decorated in blind; 536pp., with a monochrome frontispiece. 34 plates likewise (some folding) and a folding chart. Mild wear; mild bumping to the boards corners; text block top edge lightly dusted; offset to the endpapers; previous owner's pencilled name to the flyleaf. Lacks dustwrapper. Very good. Click here to order $150

94234 Mackaness, George Alexander Dalrymple's "A Serious Address to the Public on the Intended Thief Colony at Botany Bay" - signed by the author With a Memoir; with Four Illustrations D.S. Ford Printer, Sydney NSW, 1943. Quarto; paperback, stapled brochure in printed yapp covers; 39pp. with four monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; covers rubbed and scraped along the spine with some minor creasing; signed and numbered in ink on the limitations page. Very good to near fine. Number 9 of only 90 copies. "As the first to hold the post of Hydrographer to the Admiralty, Dalrymple's work was especially onerous and important, involving not only the collecting, collating and publishing of a large number of charts, but also the organising of a department till then non-existent. This work he performed with great industry and zeal, if not always with good discretion. His services were unquestionably good, though he seems to have placed on them a higher value than did his superiors for the time being. For this reason he was involved in frequent unpleasantnesses, and experienced many mortifications and disappointments. As one of his contemporaries wrote: 'Mr. Dalrymple was in fact an impracticable and obstinate man, and very difficult to be diverted from any plan or project he had conceived.'" - George Mackanness. Click here to order $50

94235 Mackaness, George "The Van Diemen's Land Warriors" - signed by the author With an essay on Matthew Brady; with Five Illustrations D.S. Ford Printer, Sydney NSW, 1944. Quarto; paperback, stapled brochure in printed yapp covers; 33pp. with five monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; covers lightly sunned with some mild moisture damage along the spine; signed and numbered in ink on the limitations page. Very good to near fine. Number 44 of only 90 copies. "In December, 1821, Lieutenant-Governor William Sorell selected Macquarie Harbour, an inlet of the sea on the western coast of Tasmania, about 200 miles by water from Hobart, as a place of punishment for the worst class of criminals. So dreary was the region, so harsh the conditions of life, and so ferocious the punishments inflicted, that during the first five years of its establishment at least half of the two hundred prisoners confined there attempted to escape. Some perished; some were re-taken; others formed bushranging gangs, the most notorious of which was that led by Matthew Brady, an educated man, who had been transported to New South Wales and then sent to Van Diemen's Land for gross insubordination." - George Mackaness Click here to order $50

86951 McMenomy, Keith (Introduction by Manning Clark) Ned Kelly The Authentic Illustrated Story Currey O'Neil Ross, South Yarra Vic., 1984. Folio; hardcover, quarter-bound in papered boards with marbled endpapers; 269pp., with many colour and monochrome illustrations. Mild wear; lower board corners slightly scraped. Mild scuffing to dustwrapper; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. The ultimate book for anyone interested in Ned Kelly and his life, it contains scores of original photographs and words from the protagonists themselves and details Kelly's short, but memorable, life from start to finish. Self-confessed horse thief, a bank robber who admitted shooting dead a policeman, and the leader of a notorious gang of outlaws, Ned Kelly is a character who generates fascination and controversy, not only in his native Australia but worldwide. Keith McMenomy has spent twenty years assembling an unrivalled selection of Kelly paraphernalia - with over 330 illustrations - piecing together authentic accounts to form a complete picture of Kelly and his gang. He illuminates the continuing argument over whether Kelly was merely a spectacular and hardened criminal, or a symbol of rebellion from repression, the embodiment of the Australian ideal of "the fearless, the free and the bold". Click here to order $90

48558 Melville, Henry (Introduction by George MacKaness, ed.) The History of Van Dieman's Land From the Year 1824 to 1835 inclusive During the Administration of Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur Horwitz-Grahame, Sydney NSW, 1965. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 199pp., with monochrome plates and illustrations. Mild wear; board edges and corners worn; toned and spotted text block edges. Well-rubbed dustwrapper with browning to edges and spine panel; wear and small scrapes to edges with small missing segment to the top of the lower panel; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good to near fine. Very little is known about Melville's life before his arrival in Hobart, then known as Hobart Town, in 1827; all that is known is that he was born in 1799 somewhere in New South Wales. His arrival in Hobart occurred during a time of severe conflict between the British settlers and the Tasmanian Aborigines known as the Black War. It was in 1829 that Melville began to write his The History of Van Diemen's Land from the Year 1824 to 1835. In March 1830, Melville purchased his first newspaper, The Colonial Times, and later that year published, and printed, Henry Savery's Quintus Servinton, a work which is claimed by some to be Australia's first published novel. The next year he purchased another newspaper, The Tasmanian, and later joined with another journalist by the name of Robert Murray to produce the Tasmanian and Southern Literary and Political Journal. Click here to order $35

86626 Oxley, Deborah Convict Maids - signed The Forced Migration of Women to Australia Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1996. Octavo; paperback; 339pp., with many monochrome illustrations and diagrams. Minimal wear; mild spotting to upper text block edges; inscribed by the author in ink to the previous owner. Very good to near fine. "Convict Maids" destroys the myth that the female convicts transported from Britain and Ireland to New South Wales between 1826 and 1840 were mainly prostitutes, professional criminals and the 'sweepings of the gaols'. Deborah Oxley argues that in fact these women helped put the colony on its feet. Oxley shows that the women were generally first offenders, transported for minor offences. They were skilled, literate, young and healthy - qualities exploited by the new colony, which needed them both in the labour market and as wives and mothers. This is the first major study to analyse the backgrounds of female convicts against the general labour force. It also compares the legal systems and economies of Britain and Ireland, placing the women's crimes in context. "Convict Maids" draws on historical, economic and feminist theory, and is impressive for its extensive and original research. Click here to order $65

39444 Pascoe, J.J. (ed.) History of Adelaide and Vicinity with a General Sketch of the Province of South Australia and Biographies of Representative Men Hussey & Gillingham, Adelaide SA, 1901. Square folio; hardcover, with upper board title; 691pp. Moderate wear; repaired binding with new endpapers; dark stain to lower corner of initial pages; another water stain to the corner of the final pages with resultant adhesion and subsequent tearing to the edges (not impinging on the text); spotting to the text block edges; some light dusting to the text block top edge; boards moderately worn with marks and a few scrapes. A good, solid copy. Compiled with the intention of producing an authoritative account of the history of South Australia, this book offers an overview of the history of Adelaide and its vicinity as well as containing a biographical section of noteworthy residents. Illustrated with decorations, drawings and photographs, chapters are devoted to the forerunners, architects, founders, builders, citizens, husbandmen, legislators, producers, and the railway builders of the city, as well as covering the jubilee celebrations. The second half of the work is devoted to individual biographies of prominent figures and is accompanied by appendices. Click here to order $250

201406 Penzig, Edgar Ben Hall - signed limited edition The Definitive Illustrated History Tranter Enterprises, Katoomba NSW, 1996. Octavo; hardcover, with illustrated boards; 535pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Minimal wear; signed in ink by the author to the limitations page. No dustwrapper, as issued. Fine. Number 696 of a limited edition print run of 2,000 signed copies. This book is the end result of vital new information, facts and illustrations, which have come to light since the publication of [Penzig's] 1985 book. "The Sandy Creek Bushranger", which covered the life of the notorious bushranger Ben Hall and his associates. Continuing years of research, lucky finds and contacts with [various family sources], have unearthed a treasure trove of photographs, documents and new facts relating to all the characters connected with the Ben Hall saga. All of which have been assisted in no small way by the blossoming interest in family history. Click here to order $250

201405 Penzig, Edgar Troopers, Villains, Vipers and Vixens - signed, limited and numbered edition An Illustrated History of Police and Colonial Crime - 1850-1915 Tranter Enterprises, Katoomba NSW, 1995. Octavo; hardcover, with illustrated boards; 224pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Minimal wear. No dustwrapper as issued. Near fine. Limited edition of 1500, this is No. 1293, signed in ink and numbered by the author on limitations page, and additionally signed on front endpaper. Australia's wild colonial days - which involved the goldfields, bushrangers, and outback settlers - spanned the period between 1850 and 1900, though it is generally accepted that the main period of bushranging ended in1879 with the capture of the notorious Kelly gang in Victoria. Whilst there certainly were bushrangers after this time, most were just one-off criminals. who were involved in the odd hold-up or two, before getting their just desserts inside one of Her Majesty's prisons. While some civilians did capture several of the more notorious bushrangers, the majority fell victim to the dedication and pursuit of the bush mounted-trooper, someone who at most times was always riding inferior Government purchased horses; was issued with inferior weapons; and, to cap this off, was not even issued with enough ammunition to enable him to practice even one shot with his service revolver, or carbine. Yet at all times these policemen continued the chase against the law breakers and many lost their lives through gunshot wounds, privation, falls from horses, or by drowning while trying to cross flooded creeks, or rivers. And for all this the constable was paid the princely sum of six shillings a day - the same wage as a labourer, and the lowest wage in the colony. Click here to order $180

215713 Phillip, Arthur The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay with an account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson & Norfolk Island Compiled from Authentic Papers, which have been obtained from the several Departments, to which are added, The Journals of Lieuts., Shortland, Watts, Ball & Capt. Marshall, with an Account of their new Discoveries John Stockdale; Piccadilly, 1789. First edition: quarto hardcover; 293 + lxxixpp. + adverts. Rebound; black textured boards with black leather spine and corners, gilt spine titling and decorations with five bands; portrait frontispiece and engraved title page, seven folding engraved charts and 46 monochrome engraved plates (the 55 plates listed on list of illustrations includes title page, frontispiece and charts), of which there are 31 natural history plates. Twenty illustrations without tissue guards. P.122 with the uncorrected mis-numbering 221; early state of the 'Kangooroo' plate at p.106 and 'The Kanguroo' on List of the Plates page; 'Wulpine Opossum' plate at p.50 listed as Vulpine Opossum on List of the Plates; 'Ball Pyramid' at p.177 listed on List of the Plates at p.181; and the 'Black Flying Opossum' is listed at p.297 when it is at p.298. Owner's bookplate on front pastedown; new endpapers; light decreasing stain to lower side edge of initial pages; tiny tear to lower side edge of foxed frontispiece; foxed preliminaries and some further minor spotting; toning and mild darkening to text block edges; five pages extreme upper tips dog-eared; some of folding maps have creased edges and a couple of small tears likely incurred in the collating and binding process. Boards are only mildly scuffed but there are four small white stains on the rear one. Corners and lower spine extremity slightly scraped. Very good copy in a sympathetic binding. Order of contents: Dedication to the Marquis of Salisbury; Anecdotes of Governor Phillip; Errata; Advertisement; Account of the Vignette; Visit of Hope to Sydney Cove near botany Bay; View of the Fleet & Establishments sent out with Governor Phillip to New South Wales; Distribution of the Detachment of Marines for New South Wales, with the Number embarked on board of each of the Transports upon that Service; A List of the Subscribers; List of the Plates; Contents; Appendix and A List of Convicts Sent to New South Wales in 1787; Advertisement. Jonathan Wantrup in 'Australian Rare Books, 1788-1900' writes: " As the title-page makes clear, the book does not publish Governor Phillip's own journal but is a compilation from a number of sources, including Phillip's official reports to the government. These were worked up and given the appropriate literary feel by Stockdale's anonymous editor. This was normal practice at the time." Phillip's writing is like the man himself: honest, direct and unaffected. It is not surprising that the publisher, faced with Phillip's concise and unadorned reports, should have used all his powers to stretch them into as many words as possible to make up the elaborate work he had led his public to expect. The consequence is that Phillip's simple eloquence becomes pomposity under his editor's hand...." Stockdale published the work initially in parts. The first part, which included the engraved title-page, was issued in July 1789 and the last, which included the Dedication leaf dated 25 November 1789 was issued in late November or early December 1789. The full work was then issued in complete volume form." L. Richard Smith's monograph, 'The Sydney Cove Medallion' (Sydney 1978), which Wantrup cites, relates a number of important facts concerning this publication: 1. The engraved title page appears in two states - the earlier state includes the name of the artist Henry Webber on the engraving of the Josiah Wedgwood medallion which appears as a vignette; in the second state Webber's name has been removed at Wedgwood's request. The earliest copies of Phillip will have the legend H. Webber invt, in the lower left border of the vignette (as is the case with the present copy). 2. The vulpine opossum facing page 150 has the word 'wulpine' instead of Vulpine (although Wantrup indicates this error was repeated in the second state). Stockdale issued the volume both with the natural history plates hand-coloured as well as uncoloured (for many years there was no way to distinguish with certainty genuine coloured copies from spurious copies - but it has now been established that in genuine coloured copies the plates are printed on laid paper whereas the ordinary uncoloured version issues the plates on wove paper). Click here to order $12000

93835 Phillips, John H. The Trial of Ned Kelly The Law Book Company, North Ryde NSW, 1987. Octavo; paperback; 135pp., with monochrome plates. Minor wear; spotting to text block edges; mild rubbing and edgewear to the covers. Very good. On the 29th of October in 1880, Ned Kelly was convicted of the murder of Constable Lonigan. The trial lasted a mere two days: all the forces of the Crown were marshalled against the 'outlaw', defended by an unknown barrister running his first - and last - Supreme Court case. 13 days later Kelly was hanged. Within one month, Justice Barry died, fulfilling Kelly's prophecy from the dock, that 'I will meet you there where I go.' Did Kelly receive his just deserts? Or was he, as legend would have it, the victim of persecution? In pursuit of these questions, John Philips recreates Kelly's trial, utilising all the primary sources available, and analyses the performances of all the leading actors. Click here to order $25

203673 Robinson, Portia The Hatch and Brood of Time - signed A study of the first generation of native-born white Australians 1788-1828, Volume One Oxford University Press, Melbourne Vic., 1985. Octavo; hardcover, with silver-gilt spine titles; 369pp. Mild wear; lower board edges bumped; lightly toned and faintly spotted text block edges; signed by the author in ink to the flyleaf and title page. Dustwrapper spine panel slightly faded; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. "Australians, confronted with the unpalatable complication that so many of their ancestors were convicts, have tended to portray the early inhabitants of Botany Bay either as unregenerate riffraff, or as refugees from economic oppression in Britain. These caricatures have been particularly unjust to the first generation of colonial-born Australians, and Portia Robinson has now sought to rescue this 'long neglected race of men and women' from the condescension of their contemporary superiors and later historians. Through individual and collective biographies, based on rarely used sources, and a mass of quantitative and qualitative evidence, she has brought into the historical spotlight, in all their fascinating diversity, the white children born in early New South Wales and also their parents, many of whom were, or had been, convicts. She stresses the stability of family life and the close relationships of children and parents...This is a major work of revisionist scholarship to be complemented by a separate volume of documentary evidence..." - American Historical Review. Click here to order $70

12213 Robinson, Portia The Women of Botany Bay A Reinterpretation of the Role of Women in the Origins of Australian Society The Macquarie Library Pty. Ltd., Sydney NSW, 1988. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 344pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; mildly toned text block and page edges; one or two spots on the endpapers; previous owner's ink inscription. Dustwrapper faded on spine panel (now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film). Very good to near fine. "The Women of Botany Bay" is a history of the European women who came to New South Wales as convicted felons or as the free wives of convicts. It is based on the re-creation of the individual and collective British and Australian lives of every woman convicted in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales and transported to New South Wales between 1787 and 1828, and as many of the 'convict wives' as could be traced. The contribution of these women to the development of a distinctive Australian society and their influence on the nature, structure and characteristics of that society, has been ignored, glossed over or distorted. It is the aim of this book to allow these women to speak for themselves after some 200 years of neglect and misrepresentation. It is on the evidence of their own lives, achievements, failures, hopes and despairs, that their influence on both the social and economic development of the colony of New South Wales is reassessed. Click here to order $60

33329 Scott, James Remarks on a Passage to Botany Bay 1787-1792 A First Fleet Journal Trustees of the Public Library of NSW & Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1963. Hardcover quarto; red cloth boards with gilt spine titling; 83pp., b&w photographic frontispiece. Mild rubbing to board edges and corners; slightly fanned upper front board; toned and spotted text block and page edges. Gray card dustwrapper lightly browned at edges with a few small stains on spine and tiny missing segments at spine panel extremities and corners, now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film with white paper backing. Very good. Written by a Sergeant of Marines, James Scott gives a picture of the arrival of the First Fleet and of the early days in Port Jackson, somewhat different from that presented by any of the better known accounts of the period. This personal journal therefore represents a section of the First Fleet's complement that has previously had no published spokesman. Click here to order $60

88900 Sidney, Samuel The Three Colonies of Australia New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, their Pastures, Copper Mines & Gold Fields; With Numerous Engravings. Ingram Cooke & Co., London, 1852. Octavo; hardcover, with cloth decorated in blind and gilt spine and upper board titles; 428pp., with an engraved frontispiece and many illustrations likewise, some with tissue guards. Moderate wear; rebound, using much of the original cloth; spine and upper board sunned; top corner of upper board very worn and sunned; bottom edge of frontispiece chipped and torn; text block edges toned; mild toning to some of the illustrations. Very good. The work captures the history of the three colonies up to the initial impetus of gold discoveries, which thereafter transformed Australia. Click here to order $150

67037 Smith, Babette Australia's Birthstain - signed The Startling Legacy of the Convict Era Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest NSW, 2008. First edition: octavo; hardcover, with silver-gilt spine titling; 400pp., with many monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; author's signature in ink; well-toned text block edges with spotting. Dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good to near fine. This is a controversial new history of convicts in Australia, which lays bare the distortions and myths that caused the nation to deny its own past. Why is it that Australians are still misled by myths about their convict heritage? Why are so many family historians surprised to find a convict ancestor in their family trees? Why did an entire society collude to cover up its past? Babette Smith traces the stories of hundreds of convicts over the 80 years of convict transportation to Australia. Putting a human face on the convicts' experience, she paints a rich picture of their crimes in Britain and their lives in the colonies. We know about Port Arthur, Norfolk Island, chain-gangs and floggings, but this was far from the experience of most. In fact, most convicts became good citizens and the backbone of the new nation. So why did we need to hide them away? "Australia's Birthstain" rewrites the story of Australia's convict foundations, revealing the involvement of British politicians and clergy in creating a birthstain that reached far beyond convict crimes. Its startling conclusion offers a fresh perspective on our past. Click here to order $35

12024 Sprod, Dan The Usurper Jorgen Jorgenson and his turbulent life in Iceland and Van Diemen's Land, 1780 - 1841 Blubber Head Press, Hobart TAS, 2001. First edition: quarto; hardcover; 718pp. with colour and monochrome plates and maps. Dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Fine. Jorgen Jorgenson was an extraordinarily talented man by any judgment. A Dane by birth, he went to sea at fourteen years of age, and, four years later in 1798, sailed on a whaler to the South Seas. After twenty months at the Cape colony in South Africa, he sailed for Sydney Cove, arriving around the end of 1800. Based in Sydney, he participated as a crew member of the surveying brig HMS "Lady Nelson" in the exploration of Bass Strait and in the establishment of the first white settlements at the Derwent River, Van Diemen's Land and at Port Phillip. After commanding a sealing voyage to New Zealand, he embarked for England on the "Alexander". Returning to his homeland, Jorgenson was obliged by war between Denmark and England to command a privateer "Admiral Juul" and, after a sea battle with HMS "Sappho", he was taken prisoner. Despite this, he joined two trading ventures to Iceland in 1809 during which the events of the Icelandic Revolution took place. His subsequent life was no less adventurous. An intelligent man with a strong literary bent, and despite periods in English gaols, he wrote plays, satires, and works on Tahiti and Denmark, travel, religion, plus voluminous letters to his friend the botanist William Jackson Hooker, who shared his Icelandic experience. In 1817, he travelled to France and Germany as an agent, or spy, for the British Foreign Office. However, compulsive gambling and drinking led to a steady decline and to imprisonment for debt and theft. He was transported to the convict colony of Van Diemen's Land, thus returning him to the settlement he helped to establish 23 years earlier. He remained as a convict, then as a free man, land explorer, police constable, head of roving parties against the Tasmanian Aborigines, newspaper writer and editor, and died there in 1841. "The Usurper" is a documentary history: original documents are presented, linked by a detailed text, the whole being supported by notes, illustrations, maps, bibliographies and an index. Click here to order $60

92181 Statham-Drew, Pamela James Stirling: Admiral and Founding Governor of Western Australia University of Western Australia, 2005. Hardcover, octavo; black boards with gilt spine titling and dark red endpapers; 655pp., colour and monochrome plates and illustrations; black ribbon marker. Minor wear; very faint spotting to upper text block edges. Near fine in like illustrated dustwrapper. This ambitious biography, seven years in the making, breaks new ground in documenting James Stirling's path from birth into one of Scotland's oldest families, through to founder and Governor of the Swan River Colony and, ultimately, to Admiral and British naval chief in East Asia. During his naval career Stirling commanded five different vessels, taking him to the Americas, on voyages of exploration and settlement in Australia's west and north, to diplomatic intrigue in the Mediterranean, and finally to Hong Kong and Japan where he engineered a significant new treaty. Stirling's place in history has hitherto been questioned and over-simplified particularly regarding his contentious West Australian land grants. This absorbing biography seeks to redress this bias while, at the same time, revealing much about the human face and foibles of the man remembered today as the founder of the State of Western Australia. Click here to order $30

205079 Swiss, Deborah J. The Tin Ticket The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women Berkley Books, New York NY, 2010. First edition. Hardcover, octavo; quarter bound white papered boards with white spine and gilt spine titling; 333pp., monochrome plates. Mild rubbing to board edges with slightly frayed corners; toned text block edges. Very good in like dustwrapper now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Convicted of minor crimes, four women - Agnes McMillan, Janet Houston, Bridget Mulligan, and Ludlow Tedder - were exiled to Van Diemen's Land, later known as Tasmania. Tin tickets, stamped with numbers, were hung around the women's necks as they were loaded aboard the ships set to carry them to their new home. Crossing shark-infested waters, some died in shipwrecks during the four-month journey. Others were impregnated against their will by their captors. They arrived as nothing more than property. But as the year passed, they managed not only to endure privation and pain but to thrive on their own terms, breaking the chains of bondage and forging a society that treated women as equals and led the world in fighting for women's rights. The Tin Ticket takes us to the early nineteenth century and into the lives of these extraordinary women, and chronicles how their destinies were touched by the Quaker reformer Elizabeth Gurney Fry. Ultimately, it is the story of women discarded by their homeland and forgotten by history - women who, by sheer force of will, became the heart and soul of a new nation. Click here to order $25

87236 Turnbull, Clive Black War The Extermination of the Tasmanian Aborigines Lansdowne Press, Melbourne Vic., 1965. Octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 274pp. Minor wear; offsetting to endpapers; toned and lightly spotted text block edges; mild scuffing to lower board edges. Dustwrapper spine panel slightly faded; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good to near fine. "Black War" is the story of a race of people - the Aboriginal peoples of Tasmania - who were destroyed utterly within seventy-five years. All this - although almost within living memory - happened before the birth of the modern science of anthropology. A whole culture disappeared; never before, perhaps, has an entire society been so slaughtered. Clive Turnbull's work is the first extensive study of the subject, since Bonwick's "The Last of the Tasmanians" was published in 1870, and Calder's "Some Account of the Wars, Extirpation, Habits, Etc., of the Native Tribes in Tasmania", in 1875. Turnbull's approach is that of the social historian; he is concerned with the interaction of the European and Aboriginal cultures. In this respect his book is a unique survey of peculiar interest because, although the forces at work in Tasmania have their equivalents in other parts of Australia today (and in other countries), in Tasmania the cycle is complete. It may now be studied as a whole, and at sufficient removal of time to permit some degree of objectivity. Click here to order $60

30056 Wells, William Henry A Geographical Dictionary; or, Gazetteer of the Australian Colonies Their Physical and Political Geography, together with a brief notice of all the capitals, principal towns and villages; also of rivers, bays, gulfs, mountains, population and general statistics. Illustrated with numerous maps and drawings. The Council of the Library of New South Wales, Sydney NSW, 1970. Octavo; hardcover, with gilt spine titling; 464pp. [i-viiipp., 1-438pp., 2 blank, 1-16pp. (adverts)], with 2 engraved frontispieces, 23 monochrome maps (1 folding), and 2 engraved plates likewise. Minor wear; previous owner's name in ink; text block edges mildly spotted. Some tiny scrapes and wear to the dustwrapper edges; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Near fine. Publication number 14 of the William Dixson Foundation, this facsimile reproduction of the first published gazetteer of Australia, originally issued in 1848, gives a coherent snapshot of the state of the First Colony at that time. Original copies of this authoritative work, and access to them, are very hard to find, so this edition - provided under the auspices of the Library of New South Wales Council - brings Wells' research into the scope of everybody delving into the conditions of Victorian-era Australia. Click here to order $80

35708 Wentworth, W.C. Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land Griffin Press, Adelaide SA, 1978. Facsimile reprint: octavo; hardcover, with gilt upper board and spine titling; 466pp. Minor wear; toned and spotted text block edges. Dustwrapper a little foxed with embrowning along spine panel and edges; small mark on lower panel; now professionally protected by superior non-adhesive polypropylene film. Very good. The politician, landowner and journalist W. C. Wentworth (1790 to 1872), was an energetic and controversial character in the early history of modern Australia. Together with Gregory Blaxland and William Lawson, he was recognised as the first to cross Australia's Blue Mountains. A well-known public figure in the colony of New South Wales, he founded a newspaper called "The Australian" (in 1824) and campaigned, among other things, for a free press; trial by jury; rights for emancipated convicts; public education; and a representative government. He also became extremely wealthy. In this book, first published in 1819, Wentworth argues that the Australian colonies are a better choice than the United States of America for European emigrants. The book contains a vast amount of information about the colonies of New South Wales and Tasmania, together with Wentworth's suggestions for the improvement of their government, and remains an important resource for historians. Click here to order $40