Non-fiction

A Man for Antarctica – The Early Life of Phillip Law – Kathleen Ralston

Phillip Law (1912-2010) was born at Tallangalta and educated at Hamilton, Ballarat and then Melbourne University where he achieved an MSc in Physics. During WWII he wished to join the RAAF but was persuaded to stay at Melbourne University working on weapons research. His first trip to the Antarctic was in 1947 he would become known as “Mr Antarctica”.

A first edition published by Hyland House, Melbourne in 1983. Octavo, 236 pages, nicely illustrated. A very good copy.

Phillip Law – Australia’s “Mr Antarctica

$30.00

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A Convict Story – The Lost Lives of Lyra and William Sykes – “These few lines” – Graham Seal

Published by ABC Books, Sydney in 2006. This book took twenty year of research in England and Australia a narrative based around fragments of the separated lives of Lyra and William Sykes.

Living in northern England, William Sykes was a poacher and during such an escapade he got into an altercation and killed the gamekeeper. His penalty was transportation to the Swan River in Western Australia.

Octavo, 234 pages, nicely illustrated with images of letters exchanges, journals and places relevant to both Myra and William. Fine condition.

Interesting convict story well researched, written and presented.

$20.00

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Australian Born Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry – [Sir] John Warcup Cornforth – Signed manuscript letter

A very special letter (dated 1980) not only because of its truly distinguished author but here we have real content. Letters by Nobel Prize winners are not terribly rare but so often are perfunctory, relating to meetings, events or simply lunch. Here we have real, in depth, chemistry. The receiver, Dr Buckel, a distinguished scientist in his own right, may have been rather embarrassed on receipt. Cornforth believes that Buckel had tackled his work from completely the wrong route … indeed Cornforth is puzzled and goes on to set out in great detail his preferred option(s). In our view the content reveals the manner in which Cornforth visualises the solution to the problem from first principles then more complex mechanisms and solutions and alternative options as his thinking develops. The fact of his genius is plain in the writing. We love it.

The only Australian to date to have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Dear Dr Buckel

Thank you for your letter of 7 October. I was interested by your account of the work with glutaconate, but rather puzzled that you did not try the degradation to malate in the way you say I suggested. I have forgotten the details of our conversation during your very welcome visit, but certainly I would expect direct oxidation of glutaconate to malate by permanganate to be most unfavourable. This is because in glutaconate one has the combination of a double bond deactivated by conjunction with a carboxyl and a strongly activated methylene group. In these circumstances one would expect permanganate to attack the methylene group to a considerable and perhaps predominant extent, before the double bond was attacked. This is why it would be preferable to use a specific agent first to hydroxylate the double bond. Indeed, it should be possible to proceed in high yield to malic acid by making use of the fact that one of the hydroxyl groups will form a lactone. Thus: … chemical formulae.

He goes on …

The opening of the lactone ring is generally faster than the hydrolysis of an ester group (especially a benzoate) so that if you put the acetyl or benzoyl-lactone in hot water and neutralized the acidity as it appeared you should be able to get a clean ring-opening without other chemical changes. I really think you should try this – it seems so much simpler than the routes you have explored.

I will ask at Sittingbourne if they have any chiral acetate left – I brought none of it here. It will be ten years old now and will have lost nearly half its original radioactivity but a specimen tested for chirality about five years ago seemed not to have been racemized by radiolysis or by preservation in the form of aqueous potassium acetate. However, I wonder if this is the best way to make chiral 4-substituted glutamates and I wonder if you could do this from chirally tritiated malate using R-citrate synthetase and malate dehydrogenase, following this by treatment of the citrate with aconitase, isocitrate dehydrogenase etc. This should give you a totally chiral product whereas by starting from acetate you are at the mercy of isotope effects.

Cornforth goes on to offer his help in finding candidates for research, a task he may achieve on Thursday at The Royal Society where he is attending a discussion on glycolytic enzymes. There it is again proof The Royal Society …is the best Club in the World!

Sydney born Cornforth was totally deaf by the age of twenty but already recognised as and exceptional academic. He went to England, Oxford, along with a similarly gifted chemist Rita Harradence, who he later married. His relationship with Rita started over a broken Claisen flask .. Cornforth was a expert glassblower … something that was essential in the aspiring chemist in the 1930’s. Interestingly, there was no place in Australia where one could do a decent PhD in chemistry at that time. Naturally at Oxford Cornforth was in his element. He went on to be the first to synthesise cholesterol and had a hand in stabilising penicillin building on the work of fellow Australian Howard Florey. Cornforth was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1975 and coincidental with being made “Australian of the Year”. Cornforth also won the Davy Medal, Copley Medal, was Knighted and made Fellow of the Royal Society

Scientific gold – Manuscript letter with considerable scientific content by Australian Nobel Prize winner John Warcup Cornforth

$490.00

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D.H. Lawrence in Australia – Robert Darroch – First Edition 1981

A very good copy of the first edition of Darroch’s most interesting account of D.H.Lawrence Down Under.

Published by Macmillan, Melbourne in 1981. Octavo, 130 pages, nicely illustrated.

Lawrence was in Australian in 1922 during which time when in New South Wales he penned the worthy novel “Kangaroo”. A work that was once dismissed as imaginary but in fact based on a half-forgotten period of violence and hatred in Australia. As in Europe fascism was building. His protagonist Richard Lavat Somers was a writer and maybe from that fact some believed the work partly autobiographical … we doubt it.

D.H.Lawrence out and about in Australia and the making of “Kangaroo”.

$30.00

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Aces Made Easy [Cheating at Bridge - Our Emphasis] – McCullough and Fogasse.

Published by Methuen, London in 1945, having first been published in 1934.

Small octavo, 134 pages, illustrated by Fogasse. I very good copy albeit with dust jacket chips.

We love this little book which is essentially all about how to cheat well at the card game Bridge. Bridge players on the whole are rather snooty self important individuals. It’s a game that can lead to divorce, and lost friends, so cheating on those so self consumed seams to Voyager to be rather fair.

The Author wrote a few books along these lines – another we like is tilted “Card-playing for Profit” .. another “What shall I tell my Partner?”.

Get over the moral dilemma and cheat at Bridge it’s much more fun than the game.

$30.00

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Womba – and Aboriginal Stockboy (in the Cattle Country in the Heart of Australia) – F.J. McLeod – First edition 1952.

Published by Georgian House, Melbourne, a first edition generally in very good clean condition with the super period wrap around dust jacket art.

The writer of the story of Womba had been a mounted policeman. The story centres on Dericka Station which is in the MacDonnell Ranges.

Super depiction of station life where Womba learns to break in wild colts and the mustering of cattle over the vast expanses of the station. Interactions with the local Myall tribesmen are a little mysterious.

An acceptable treatment of the subject matter especially for the period.

Womba in the MacDonnell Ranges.

$25.00

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A Man for Antarctica – The Early Life of Phillip Law – Kathleen Ralston

A Convict Story – The Lost Lives of Lyra and William Sykes – “These few lines” – Graham Seal

Australian Born Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry – [Sir] John Warcup Cornforth – Signed manuscript letter

D.H. Lawrence in Australia – Robert Darroch – First Edition 1981

Aces Made Easy [Cheating at Bridge - Our Emphasis] – McCullough and Fogasse.

Womba – and Aboriginal Stockboy (in the Cattle Country in the Heart of Australia) – F.J. McLeod – First edition 1952.

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