LRP / November 2017 Catalogue no. 3Science, Voyages & History

[BLIGH] SHILLIBEER, John.Ontmoetingen op eene reis met het schip Briton, naar het eiland Pitcairn…

Published: Dordrecht: Blusse en Van Braam, 1819. Collation: octavo, [vii], 180 pp., in contemporary tan half calf, sprinkled paper boards, green spine label. Condition: some foxing, the spine a little chipped and evidence that a lower label has been removed at some point, but generally a very attractive copy indeed.

Very rare Dutch edition: no copy in Australia or NZ

First Dutch edition of Shillibeer’s swashbuckling tale of sailing in the Pacific, including his widely-read account of meeting the last of the Bounty survivors on Pitcairn Island. Even apart from it’s Bligh interest, Shillibeer’s book is an important account from an intriguing era in Pacific exploration.

Shillibeer’s book was originally published in Taunton (Somerset) in 1817 and again in London later the same year. This Dutch edition is very scarce indeed, and I can find records relating to only two confirmed sales: the first a rather worn copy at Sotheby’s in 1964, at the sale of the library of Senor Alberto Dodero of Buenos Aires (US$22.40); and a second copy, noted as in fair condition, at the small Dutch auction house Bubb-Kupyer in 2004 (EUR 420).

$1250 References: Borba de Moraes, p. 797; Ferguson, 767; Sabin, 80845.

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BLUMENBACH, Johann Friedrich.Ioanni Fr. Blumenbach… Viro Illustri Germaniae Decori diem semisecularem Physiophili Germanici laete gratulantur…

Published: Berolini, Litteris Starckianis, 19 September 1825. Description: octavo, engraved frontispiece, 131 pp. Condition: very good, some very light foxing to the frontispiece, neat repair to gutter-edge of title-page, neat blue modern buckram, labels on spine.

Blumenbach & three skulls from his collection

Uncommon: first edition, listing European portraits in Blumenbach’s collection at Göttingen.

Blumenbach had become fascinated with the study of comparative anatomy in the 1780s, and pressed colleagues including Sir Joseph Banks to arrange for the skulls of different peoples to be sent to him in Germany: most famously, this included the skull of a man from Tahiti brought back by William Bligh as well as those of two Australian men from the Sydney basin.

This is therefore an intriguing addendum to Blumenbach’s lifelong project of col-lecting information on the heads of the peoples of the world through any pos-sible source: as this work confirms, Blumenbach made a study of the depiction of the heads of many of the most famous names in Europe through a collection of medals and engraved portraits.

Blumenbach had collected pictures of all manner of famous names, from Da Vinci to the English scientist John Ray, but it is also interesting to see that he had also made a small collection of portraits of several of his more important correspondents, including George Thomas Baron d’Asch, Sir Joseph Banks (he had an example of the 1816 medal struck by W. Wyon), Petrus Camper, Benjamin Franklin, the British surgeon John Hunter and Daniel Solander.

In this light it is particularly interesting to observe his inclusion of the frontispiece which depicts both sides of a medal struck in Blumenbach’s honour the same year. The medal shows the head of the German scientist on the obverse, but is most remarkable for the reverse, surely unique of its kind, a striking depiction of three skulls from his collection. The skulls featured are those of a “Caucasian” between an “Ethiopian” and a “Mongolian”.

$375References: Fishburn, ‘The Field of Golgotha’, Meanjin (2017).

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[COOK, CAPTAIN James et al.].A New, Authentic Collection of Captain Cook’s Voyages round the World, undertaken By Order of his present Majesty, for making new discoveries, &c. &c… Written by several principal Officers, and other Gentlemen who sailed in the various Ships.

Published: Sheffield, Printed by J. Brunt, in King-Street, near the Market-Place, 1786. Description: octavo (called by the original publisher “Large Octavo”), with an unsigned portrait frontispiece of Cook in his naval uniform, 576 pp., in recent brown quarter calf over brown buckram. Condition: very good, the pages with some browning and thumbing, especially notice-able on the blanks and preliminaries.

Rare Cook’s voyages, for the “Middling Class” in 1786

Sheffield-published edition of the complete voyages of Cook, explicitly de-scribed as published for the “middling Class of People”. The frontispiece engraving is an interesting but rather crude copy of the Nathaniel Dance portrait of Cook.

This is one of the earliest collection editions of the voyages of Captain Cook, and like other such works seems to be really quite rare. Forbes described two copies, one in the Alexander Turnbull Library and a second in the British Library, but one is also listed in Australia, in the Petherick collection of the National Li-brary of Australia. The note for the copy in the Petherick collection confirms that the work is not in the Cook bibliographies of Beddie nor Sir Maurice Holmes, and notes: “The descriptions of the first and second voyages are taken from ‘A new, authentic, and complete collection of voyages round the world’, published under the direction of George William Anderson in 1784-[86].”

Forbes has written about the book originally being published in 24 weekly parts, each of 24 pages, in 1786 (each part said to have cost 2 ½ pence). The original prospectus for the book, also quoted by Forbes, noted that it was to be printed on “superfine Paper” and with a “beautiful new Letter, cast on purpose by Fry and Sons”. This was the Bristol-based company of Joseph Fry (1728-1787), who was said to have been inspired to experiment with printing after the success of John Baskerville of Birmingham.

In his prospectus the publisher Brunt also talked about what he saw as the importance of his edition, which he seemed to think lay chiefly in his decision to make the entire work about Cook, and not let the book be “swelled into a large Volume of other Navigators, which have been published many year ago…”. These, the prospectus claimed, are “generally abounding with tedious and uninteresting Details” which also make the books more expensive and out of the reach of the “middling Class of People.”

Provenance: early owner signatures for “John Pickering Sheffield” and “E. Han-cock 1800.”

$2400References: not in the standard Cook bibliographies of Beddie nor Holmes; Forbes, Hawaiian National Bibliography, no. 110.

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[DEPT. OF FINE ARTS & ANTIQUITIES, LAND FORCES GREECE].The Monuments of Greece. Vol. I Athens & Attica [with] Vol. II. The Peloponnese [with] Vol. III. Central & Northern Greece.

Published: Greece, Department of Fine Arts & Antiquities, no date but 1945. Description: three square-octavo booklets, line illustrations and some maps, original card wrappers. Condition: excellent.

Complete set of these rare booklets

A very rare full set of booklets produced at the end of the Second World War to provide an introduction to the classical history of Greece.

The works combine an up-to-the-minute travel guide to some of the most famous sites in Greece with notes on more recent history and the impact of the war. In this sense they are the precursors to the work being undertaken to protect cultural sites, most famously under-taken by the Monuments, Fine Arts & Archives units.

All of the volumes were prepared under the auspices of the Central Mediterranean Force. Headquarters, Land Forces Greece. Depart-ment of Fine Arts and Antiquities. There are simple line drawings throughout, although

perhaps the more important inclusions are a number of sketch maps which show both antiquities and modern sites.

The three volumes as follows:

Vol. I Athens & Attica (51 pp.)

Vol. II The Peloponnese (41 pp.)

Vol. III Central & Northern Greece (52 pp.)

None of the three booklets are not dated, but the date of 1945 is taken from the catalogue note for the set in the Imperial War Museum (UK).

$150References: IWM (online); Work of Art in Greece: The Greek Islands and the Dodeca-nese, Losses and Survivals in the War (HMSO, 1946).

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HALL, Thomas.Rare entry token for the Hall museum, depicting ‘The Kanguroo, The Armadillo, The Rhinoceros.’

Creation: London, 1795. Object: Bronze token, 30 mm. diameter. Condition: very good, and an unusually crisp strike, the beading on the obverse slightly clipped, the lettering on the reverse a little rubbed in the centre.

Kangaroos in Finsbury Square in 1795

An uncommonly good example of this remarkable token for the London taxi-dermist and showman Thomas Hall, advertising the very early display of a “Kanguroo” at his museum on City Road, near Finsbury Square. On the obverse the medal illustrates the three most remarkable animals in Hall’s museum, the kangaroo, armadillo and rhinoceros.

The kangaroo was the most famous animal brought back by Captain Cook, not least because of the painting executed by Thomas Stubbs, which was later used as the basis for an engraving in the account of Cook’s first voyage (1773). By the time of the First Fleet the kangaroo had become one of the most obvious desid-erata for collectors, so much so that Governor Phillip was informed that one of the kangaroos sent home had been valued at the incredible sum of £500 (lead-ing Phillip to indignantly deny to Sir Joseph Banks that he was in league with a showman).

As Christopher Plumb has discussed in great detail, the real kangaroo-mania started when the first live kangaroo was displayed at the Lyceum in 1791, and although by 1795 quite a number were known to have been taken to England, Hall’s display was an exceptionally early example of a museum showman exhibit-ing a specimen. Hall had established his business on Finsbury Square by 1779 at the latest, and quickly became one of the most recognised experts in his field. A fascinating etching of Hall is held by the British Museum, with a lengthy caption headed ‘To the curious observers of Natural Phenomena’, which notes that he was particularly employed by the British Museum and the great contemporary natural historian Dr. Coakley Lettsom. In 1793 Hall famously took on the task of preparing a rhinoceros, no sinecure, and presumably the animal depicted on the present token.

In the 1790s Hall and his grandson, also called Thomas, diversified from taxi-dermy into creating a museum of their own, arranging his own collection in the style of his great contemporaries, Sir Ashton Lever, William Bullock and indeed Gilbert Pidcock (see following). A contemporary trade notice by Hall includes an anonymous poem “by a Lady” which announces that his museum gloried in one of those compendium-names adored by the late eighteenth century, referring to Hall’s exhibition at the “Grand Zoonecrophylacium” (presumably meant to signify something like ‘great dead-animal-races exhibit’).

The British Museum also has a trade card of Hall’s, in which he advertises he can “now make stuffed birds sing as though they were alive” (an innovation appar-

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ently lost to history), but more importantly noting that he advertised having an impressive 2000 specimens. The museum ran into the 1840s, although some time during this decade it appears to have been wound up and the specimens were dispersed.

The reverse features the legend ‘T. Hall Citty Road near Finsbury Square London 1795’ and, around the rim, ‘The first artist in Europe for preserving birds beasts’.

Provenance: one of a group recently acquired in Germany.

$1450British Museum, online catalogue; Peter Lane & Peter Fleig, ‘London Private Muse-ums and their Tokens’, Journal of the Numismatic Association of Australia; Ed McKie, Thomas Hall of City Road (2013); Christopher Plumb, The Georgian Menagerie (2015).

NAN KIVELL, Sir Rex de Charembanc.A collection of six typed letters, signed, from Rex Nan Kivell to his fellow book collector, George Mackaness.

Creation: London, 1951-1962. Object: six typed letters on different paper stocks, four on “Redfern Galleries” letter-head. Condition: some wear but excellent and very legible (see attached images).

Nan Kivell on Australian History & the NLA

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A very interesting group of letters talking about books and book collecting from the great benefactor of the National Library, Sir Rex de Charembac Nan Kivell, to the Sydney book-collector and author George Mackaness.

The letters are particularly interesting regarding the mutual interest of the two men in Australian history and, particularly regarding Nan Kivell’s presentation of his collection to Canberra. Nan Kivell letters seem to be very rare on the market. The group as follows:

1) 27 December 1950. Nan Kivell talks about his failure to discover some people he and Mackaness were chasing, and thanks Mackaness for his latest work of Australian history.

2) 20 February 1951. Nan Kivell discusses Mackaness’s most recent monographs on William Cox (and the Blue Mountains) and Bligh, and talks about the impend-ing third volume of Ferguson’s Bibliography.

3) 30 April 1951. Nan Kivell discusses some of his more recent purchases, notably the 1794 “Minutes of the Proceedings of the Court Martial” of William Bligh. He also notes his purchase of the Wemyss account of the Charles Eaton shipwreck, Brockett’s 1836 book on the same, and a collection of early Maori printings (“they always delight my soul”). He is also sending out to Christchurch another recent purchase: Sir Joseph Banks’ door and portico.

4) 21 June 1951. Short note thanking Mackaness for his most recent monograph and putting out none too subtle feelers to be sent some of the earlier ones (“How I long for those early missing copies to complete my series…”.)

5) 9 September 1959. Nan Kivell thanks Mackaness for his most recent mono-graph and promises to undertake to answer his queries. “You will have heard perhaps that by now I have handed over to the National Library, Canberra my complete collection catalogued up to date… I am very pleased to have the re-sponsibility of the first part taken off my shoulders.” Nan Kivell also notes that he has nearly finished his book on portraits (he was being excessively optimistic: his Portraits of the Famous and Infamous was not published until 1974).

6) 19 October 1962. Thanks Mackaness for his latest monograph on Governor Phillip. Nan Kivell comments that he has the only complete set in England, “thanks to you” (his earlier comments must have borne fruit). He also comments on a list of his collection sent to Mr. Torrington and Mr. White. “I would love to go up to Canberra with you whenever I am going to pay my visit to Australia.”

$300References: ADB.

PIDCOCK, Gilbert. Menagerie token celebrating the successful breeding of kangaroos in London in 1800: “This Kangaroo’s Birth Sep. 10. 1800.”

Creation: London, 1800. Object: Bronze token, 30 mm. diameter. Condition: very good, and an unusually crisp strike with very little of the rubbing from which these tokens suffer, the beading on the obverse very good indeed, the reverse slightly off-centre.

A beautiful memento of the Kangaroo Mania in London

Rare: a particularly good example of this large half-penny sized token struck for Pidcock’s Exeter Exchange, to commemorate the birth of a joey in London in September 1800 with, on the reverse, a depiction of an “Orange Crested Cocka-too”.

The Menagerie at the Exeter Exchange on the Strand at London – usually known simply as the “Exeter ’Change” – was one of the most famous spectacles of London. It was established by Gilbert Pidcock, who had toured animal shows since the 1770s, but who became established on the Strand in London in the late 1780s and who opened the Exeter ’Change some time around 1790. It was one of the grand sites of the metropolis – Lord Byron left an amusing account of his visit in 1813 – and people flocked to see the exotic animals and birds on show. One of Pidcock’s regular visitors was the wood engraver and artist Thomas Bewick, who used the animals as models for the engravings he included in works like his famous General History of Quadrupeds.

Although it is now chiefly remembered for many of its African animals, nota-bly a zebra, a rhinoceros and, in the early 1800s its most famous exhibit of all, “Chunee” the elephant, Pidcock had begun the Exeter Exchange at the ideal time to acquire specimens from Australian and South-East Asia and was central to the “kangaroo mania” of the era.

As Christopher Plumb has discussed in great detail, the first live kangaroo was displayed at the Lyceum in 1791, while a small number were at Queen Char-lotte’s menagerie in Kew from 1792. By the end of the decade kangaroos were openly for sale by Pidcock: he had six in 1799/1800, sold all but a mating pair by mid-1800, and successfully promoted their joey, born in October, as “one of the most extraordinary subjects that nature has presented us with”.

Pidcock’s joey was not the first to have been born in England, an honour which seems to have belonged to the mob in Kew (see the anatomical studies of Rich-ard Saumarez published in 1799), but it was the first shown to the public, and it was a sensation, with advertisements in all of the papers, and high billing on trade cards such as the one in the British Museum from the collection of Sarah Sophia Banks (D,2.384) or a slightly later poster with the same provenance and which actually depicts the family of three kangaroos (D,2.373).

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The kangaroo and its joey is undoubtedly the highlight, but the cockatoo on the reverse is no less significant. Neither the token itself nor the known history of the Exeter Change is explicit about exactly what kind of cockatoo is depicted, although it is broadly clear that it must be one of the birds endemic to Australia and Indonesia.

Pidcock’s tokens are certainly scarce, particularly in good, cleanly-struck condi-tion. The diesinkers who worked on this particular token are thought to have been C. Jacobs for the kangaroo and Roger Dixon for the cockatoo.

Provenance: one of a group recently acquired in Germany.

$2250Peter Lane & Peter Fleig, ‘London Private Museums and their Tokens’, Journal of the Numismatic Association of Australia; Christopher Plumb, The Georgian Menagerie (2015).

PIDCOCK, Gilbert.Menagerie token for ‘Pidcock’s Exhibition. Exeter Change Strand London.’

Creation: London, circa 1800. Object: Bronze token, 21 mm. diameter. Condition: very good with an attractive reddish patina, both sides centrally struck.

Cockatoo and “Chunee” the elephant at Exeter Change

Very uncommon farthing-sized token for “Pidcock’s Exhibition”, advertising on the obverse the menagerie’s most famous inhabitant, ‘Chunee’ the elephant, and on the reverse, a crested cockatoo.

As described in the note for the previous item, it is not explicit precisely which type of cockatoo is depicted, but it is evidently one of those endemic to Austral-ia and Indonesia, and the actual image bears a more than passing resemblance to Sarah Stone’s depiction of the so-called “Crested Cockatoo” in surgeon John White’s Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales (1790).

The depiction on the token shows a marked similarity to Stone’s engraving, par-ticularly the way in which the bird has been posed looked back over its shoulder, which is quite unlike many of the other depictions of the era. Given that Stone worked extensively in collections like that of James Parkinson (the old Leverian Museum), it is certainly not out of the question that a connection to Stone and the Australian bird specimens sent home by surgeon White existed.

Provenance: one of a group recently acquired in Germany.

$425Peter Lane & Peter Fleig, ‘London Private Museums and their Tokens’, Journal of the Numismatic Association of Australia; Christopher Plumb, The Georgian Menagerie (2015).

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PIDCOCK, Gilbert. Menagerie token for ‘The Wanderow’ at Pidcock’s Exeter Change.

Creation: London, 1801. Object: Bronze token, 30 mm. diameter. Condition: very good, and an unusually crisp strike with very little of the rubbing from which these tokens suffer, the beading on the obverse very good indeed, the reverse slightly off-centre.

Another fine Exeter Change token

Rare: an unusually good example of this large half-penny sized token struck for Pidcock’s Exeter Exchange, with a fine depiction of the Lion-tailed Macaque or “Wanderoo”, a now endangered monkey from southern India. Pidcock’s tokens are certainly scarce, particularly in good, cleanly-struck condition.

The most significant early notice of the Lion-tailed Macaque printed in English was in George Shaw’s Museum Leverianum (1792-1796) as the “Simia Ferox”, a “native of the East Indies, and is particularly found in the island of Ceylon”. As with the previous example depicting a kangaroo, the reverse of this token de-picts an “orange crested cockatoo”, a bird endemic to Australia and Indonesia.

Provenance: one of a group recently acquired in Germany.

$500Peter Lane & Peter Fleig, ‘London Private Museums and their Tokens’, Journal of the Numismatic Association of Australia; Christopher Plumb, The Georgian Menagerie (2015); George Shaw, Museum Leverianum (1792-1796).

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[10] [TASMANIAN ADVERTISEMENTS].A group of four colour-printed advertisements for Tasmanian Apples and Pears.

Published: presumably Tasmania, mid-twentieth century. Description: colour-printed advertisements, described in the note. Condition: excellent; unused.

Apples & Pears for the export market

Four attractive examples of mid-century advertisements for Tasmanian produce. The four sheets as follows:

H. Jones & Co., “Beautiful Isle Brand Fancy Pears” (185 x 280 mm.)

Paterson & Co., “Fancy Soccer brand Apples” (215 x 275 mm.)

W.D. Peacock & Co., “I Fancy Pears” (165 x 275 mm.)

W.D. Peacock & Co., “Golden Cup Fancy Tasmanian Apples” (210 x 280 mm.)

As might be inferred from the wording of the advertisements, these were clearly designed for the export market.

$200References: Trove.

[TICHBORNE CLAIMANT] NASH, J.F. Sir Roger. A Tichborne Ballad.

Published: London, H.G. Clarke and Co., no date but after 1872, likely circa 1874. Description: folding sheet with 16 vignettes, original printed wrappers. Condition: some foxing, damage along the folds including some open tears, old neat repairs including to the gutter of the wrappers.

Sir Roger Tichborne laments his folly

A charming and quite rare work, published to capitalise on the wild enthusiasm for stories of Arthur Orton, from Wapping via Wagga Wagga, the claimant to the Tichborne baronetcy.

The tale of the Tichborne fortune and the “presumed imposter” Orton (ADB), a butcher from Wagga, was one of the great scandals of the era, and is so well known that it need not be rehearsed here.

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The present example is a humorous poem with 16 illustrated vignettes (detail opposite), the whole issued as a small pamphlet for the popular market.

Beginning “Sir Roger was a youthful knight, A youthful knight with a gallant air…”, the lyrics and accompanying cartoons clearly take the position that the butcher from Wagga Wagga was in fact Sir Roger Tichborne, leading to the rath-er comfortless moral that all heirs to good fortunes should be sensible enough to stay home. Sir Roger has a high time in Rio before going on board the Yankee brig Bella and surviving the wreck, even though “How he escaped from the sink-ing ship, And Melbourne reached, there was none to tell…”. According to the song he cheerfully changed his name and lived a jolly life in Wagga, not scorn-ing to work as a butcher despite his high-birth, although he was unable to stop a compulsion to carve the letters “R.C.D.T.” into some of the local trees.

The last vignette is signed “J.F. Nash sc.”: very little is known about Nash although he was long associated with the Covent Garden printer H.G. Clarke, and the two certainly made something of a study of the story of the Tichborne claimant, issuing a surprisingly large number of works based on his life in their “Clarke’s Whims and Oddities” series, including ‘The Tichborne Trial’ (no. 3); ‘The Yarn of the Claimant’ (no. 8), which includes the pleasing theory that there were no other survivors of the wreck of the Bella because he ate the others; and ‘Baronet or Butcher’ (no. 9).

The present example, no. 6 in the series, cer-tainly does seem to be a rare work, although copies are recorded in the NLA (Nan Kivell collection) and Princeton University Library. Given that the penultimate vignette describes

his failure at law after “seven long years”, and the final one has him banged up in Newgate, it would seem that the pamphlet dates from around 1874 (he first claimed to be Tichborne in late 1866, his civil trial took place in 1871-1872, and he was finally sentenced for perjury in March 1874).

Provenance: with the discreet library stamp of the Webster collection on the back wrapper: the New Zealand born Kenneth Athol Webster was one of the most prolific Pacific collectors of the mid-twentieth century.

$1250References: ADB; NLA online catalogue; ‘The Tichborne Case,’ SLNSW online.

[WWI] CHAPPELL, Henry & Barry PAIN.The Day and Kaiser and God.

Creation: Newcastle, Davies and Canninston, [1914]. Object: printed card, 158 x 102 mm. Condition: very good, chipped at the lower right corner with loss (see photo).

Uncommon Newcastle NSW Printing of patriotic poems

Rare: this unusual card was printed by the local branch of the Mont de Piété in Newcastle NSW (between Bolton and Watt Streets), and advertises that they “advance money on all classes of security. Lowest rates of interest.” Although the loan company had been established in Australia since 1888, the Newcastle branch had only opened a few years before the present card was printed.

Clearly dating from the first months of the war, both of the poems are fiercely jingoistic regarding the British cause. The first was written by Henry Chappell, dubbed the ‘Bath Railway Poet’. His poem, ‘The Day’, was originally published in the Daily Express in August 1914, and must bid fair to be one of the strangest patriotic verses of the war – it’s a little hard to unravel its intent, but it centres on the notion that the bragging Germans would regret the day they started a war against Britain (“You boasted the Day, and you toasted the Day, / And now the Day has come. / Blasphemer, braggart, and coward all, / Little you reck of the numbing ball…”).

The second poem by Barry Pain, ‘Kaiser and God’, has a similar theme and is reprinted from the London Times, and takes the form of mocking the German forces, and Kaiser Wilhelm specifically, for rejoicing in the early victories of the war (“Broken pledges, treaties torn, / Your first page of war adorn…”).

$80References: Trove.

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[WWI] STAR PHOTO STUDIO.Contemporary glass photographic slide of “Australians landing under shrapnel fire”.

Creation: Cairo, Star Photo Studio, [1915]. Object: glass photographic slide, 82 x 83 mm. Condition: very good.

Very rare Gallipoli slide

Rare contemporary photograph of small boats going ashore at Gallipoli on a glass photographic slide, copyrighted by the Star Photo Studio, Cairo.

The view shows a number of small boats and lighters ferrying towards the shore from a group of larger ships (seemingly the destroyers associated with Gallipoli) and, on the horizon, the dark outlines of many more vessels. It is an arresting im-age, but not well known. An example of this image is known on a postcard being used by an AIF soldier in 1915, which does confirm that it is strictly contempo-rary (Josef Lebovic collection no. 1, NMA): I assume that this magic lantern slide would have been made after the card.

The Cairo-based Star Photo was better known for taking studio portraits, but also published two other related images, ‘Landing near Turkish trenches at Gal-lipoli’ (an example recorded in the NLA) and ‘Australian wounded on the first hill at Gallipoli Peninsula’ (SLWA).

$110References: Trove.

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[WWI] MATTHEWS. Patrick.Australasia Mourns her Honored Dead.

Creation: April 1916. Object: printed handbill, 213 x 135 mm. Condition: very good, chipped at the edges (see photo).

Rare, perhaps unrecorded

A very unusual poem in the form of a handbill printed for the first Anzac Day in 1916: the printing of this intriguing handbill is a bit of a mystery, beyond the fact clearly stated that it is dedicated ‘To our Fallen Heroes on the Anniversary of their Heroic Landing at Gallipoli’, which does at least give a firm date of publica-tion.

Normally such printings are echoed in newspaper reprints, but even that does not appear to have happened here. It does not have the feel of the sort of verse being written by veterans (“Australasia mourns her brave young sons, / In freedom’s cause, who fought and fell, / Undaunted by the fiendish Huns, / The flashing steel, the bursting shell…”) so I suspect that the author is the Patrick Matthews who wrote popular song lyrics in the Edwardian era, author of works like the Australian natives’ songster and Pat Matthews’ Queensland songster.

$275References: none found.

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[REPATRIATION] MACKINNON, Donald.This is Worth Careful Study. Australia’s Offer. Some Forgotten Facts and Additional Advantages.

Published: Melbourne, Albert J. Mullett, 25 August 1917. Description: 4 pp. booklet, 225 x 142 mm. Condition: very good.

“Australia occupies a strange position…”

Rare: an interesting perspective on the need to make enlistment in the AIF as comfortable, secure and even attractive as possible, noting pay, leave, the future of repatriation and the plan to give employment preference to returned soldiers.

Donald MacKinnon (1859-1932) was a radical liberal politician in Victoria and from 1915 chair of the recruiting committee with a special interest in the con-scription referendum and questions of repatriation, since called “perhaps the sanest man in the country on the issues which were bitterly dividing the nation” (ADB).

$60References: Trove.

No. 22 (left) & no. 23 (right).

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[REPATRIATION] [MACKINNON, Donald].Facts and Figures. The Soldier’s Position.

Published: Melbourne, Albert J. Mullett, 27 August 1917. Description: 4 pp. booklet, 222 x 95 mm. Condition: very good.

“He wishes to impress upon them the following facts…”

An uncommon booklet, clearly meant as a more direct follow-up to the previous item, in that it is much more succinct about pay and conditions in the AIF. It was issued by the Director-General of Recruiting, Victoria Barracks (Melbourne), that is, Donald Mackinnon.

$40References: Trove.

[REPATRIATION] MACKINNON, Donald.America and the War.

Published: Melbourne, Albert J. Mullett, 27 August 1917. Description: single sheet, 345 x 213 mm. Condition: very good, old folds.

Printing the letter of the Archbishop of New York

Another uncommon printing arranged by the Director-General of Recruiting in Victoria, printing the patriotic letter sent by John Cardinal Fahey, the Archbishop of New York: “the military caste, which in other countries makes for war, is un-known to her social system.”

$60References: Trove.

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MATTHEW FISHBURN /LANTERNE ROUGE PRESSFirst published November 2017 © Matthew Fishburnwww.lanternerougepress.comABN 85 966 319 963