Queensland

Sailor and Beachcomber – Safroni-Middleton – First Edition 1915

“Confessions of a Life at Sea, In Australia and amid the Islands of the Pacific”. Published by Grant Richards, London a first edition 1915.

Thick octavo, 304 pages private library stamp at front and rear of Thomas Kinmore of Cork, Ireland. Nicely illustrated with 23 images from photographs. Pretty good condition.

An unusual book starting with “I run away to sea” but finds himself stranded in Brisbane and then off to the bush before leaving for the South Sea Islands. The usual chapter on cannibalism with much time spent in Samoa and Fiji, then Tahiti (and the usual chapter on morals) and the Marquesan Queens and back to Samoa before returning to Australia. Lost in the bush and on to the Gold Fields and Coolgardie. References to the Bounty and of course R.L.S. And quite a bit of violin playing – see his biography below.

Written in an interesting somewhat casual style but packed with observation if not sometimes a bit puffed up.

The author George Arnold Haynes Safroni-Middleton (1873-1950), also known as Count Safroni, was a British Composer, violinist, harpist, writer and astronomer. Born in Kent he studied violin with Pablo de Sarasate and later played with the orchestra at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney. He toured Australia and explored Borneo, Papua New Guinea and Malaysia (and also obviously the Pacific). He composed “Imperial Echoes” in 1913 which for many years was the theme of “Radio Newsreel” on the BBC. Quite an odd chap.

In Australian and (mainly) in the Pacific – entertaining

$80.00

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Incidents of a Collector’s Rambles in Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea – Sherman Denton 1889

Published by Lee and Shepard, Boston 1889. 272 pages with 13 plates and numerous text illustrations.

Original cloth covered binding. A pretty good copy.

Travels through New Zealand then to Australia (Victoria, Melbourne, Brisbane, trip through Queensland to Townsville) then to New Guinea, beginning at Port Moresby and moving inland.

A well illustrated and interesting account of the tour of a family devoted to natural history. Good New Guinea and Queensland content. Early note of the extremely unusual and primitive Mary River Lung Fish (The Jumping Fish).

Scarce Australian, Papua New Guinea item and a favourite of Voyager

$80.00

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The Life and Work of Sir William Bragg – Sir Kerr Grant Professor of Physics, Adelaide University

The John Murtagh Macrossan Memorial Lecture for 1950 published by the University of Queensland in 1952. A First edition in decorated paper covers. Scarce 46 pages with frontispiece. Gift inscription to South Australian legal mind and bibliophile Duncan-Hughes who was finishing his Masters at Trinity College Cambridge in 1909 when William Lawrence Bragg arrived to commence his fruitful time there.

Rare Bragg item delivered by distinguished physicist

$60.00

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Map of Colony of Queensland 1895

Nicely coloured antique map of Queensland up to Endeavour Reef. Published in London by Bacon a good size 44cm by 32cm with centre fold as issued.

Rather late for a Voyager map but then Queensland was still changing and being populated. Many of the larger northern centres are still to emerge. Fraser Island is still named Great Sandy Island and the ocean has yet to break through Stradbroke Island to form the North and South islands we now know. This happened in 1898.

Price $80.00 unframed
Late 19th century map of historical interest

$80.00

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The Antiquity of Man – Arthur Keith – 2 Volumes (Piltdown Man)

1928 edition by Sir Arthur Keith’s first published 1925 as a single volume. Reviewed and enhanced.

A famous work in that it includes several chapters on the greatest scientific hoax ever … The Piltdown Man … there should be a BBC mini-series on this crime. Charles Dawson discovered the skull fragments that were to provide the “missing link” between apes and man. He was then assisted by the distinguished Dr Smith Woodward. In this book Keith is not sure at all and his chapter headed “The difficulties of reconstruction” alludes to error and alternative interpretations and perhaps even the reality. The reality was exposed in1953 when the bones were found to have consisted of the mandible and some teeth of an orangutan combined with the cranium of a small brained modern human. Grafton Elliot Smith a fellow anthropologist sided with Dawson and Woodward at the Royal Society claiming that Keith’s views were motivated by ambition. Keith later recalled “Such was the end of our long friendship”.

Whilst Piltdown makes the book special there are other excellent anthropological finds well written up, not the least being the Pleistocene skull found at Talgai (near Warwick Queensland) in 1884 but brought out of a cupboard in 1914 and properly categorised by Sir T.W. Edgeworth David …. Robert Etheridge also had a hand.

Much could be said about the author Sir Arthur Keith whose interest in the origins of man stemmed from being put in charge of the Museum of the Royal Society of Surgeons at an early age.

We have included an image of the painting of key players investigating the skull of Piltdown Man … Arthur Keith is seated in the middle with Dawson and Smith Woodward standing behind him to the right …. note a painting of Charles Darwin on the wall behind the group.

Early Man and Piltdown examined but not exposed

$90.00

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In the Land of Pearl and Gold – Alexander MacDonald – First Edition 1907

First edition 1907. A Pioneer’s wanderings in the backblocks and Pearling grounds of Australia and New Guinea.

A nice copy with the striking front board illustration. Prospecting, mining and travel experiences in and around Australia with an excursion into New Guinea.

Good collectable relevant with nice illustrations

$120.00

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Sailor and Beachcomber – Safroni-Middleton – First Edition 1915

Incidents of a Collector’s Rambles in Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea – Sherman Denton 1889

The Life and Work of Sir William Bragg – Sir Kerr Grant Professor of Physics, Adelaide University

Map of Colony of Queensland 1895

The Antiquity of Man – Arthur Keith – 2 Volumes (Piltdown Man)

In the Land of Pearl and Gold – Alexander MacDonald – First Edition 1907

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