Australian Rare

The Lake Frome Monster – Arthur Upfield – First edition

A first edition of Arthur Upfield’s last novel. Incomplete at his death it was crafted into publication by J L Price and Dorothy Strange.

Published by Heinemann, London in 1966.

Octavo, 184 pages, all in pretty good condition. Edges a little aged, the strikingly scary jacket with some creases but as good as they come if you can find one.

The last Napoleon Bonaparte novel (obviously). Lake Frome is in South Australia, it’s large but rarely fills with water. A roving photographer is found dead … the monster?

Bony sets about resolving the unusual murder disguised as workman tending the very long dog-proof fence. His life is in danger … but our Bony is no coward!

Bony … out in the dirt solving the weirdest of murders.

$70.00

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Madman’s Bend – Arthur Upfield – First Edition 1963

A very good copy of the first edition of the last completed novel of Australian writer Arthur Upfield.

Aurthur William Upfield (1890-1964) was born in England and came to Australia and made it his home in 1911. He served in WWI, carried out a number of inland excursions in Australia and became familiar with the bush and indigenous Australians. He wrote many novels and is famous particularly for his crime series featuring Detective Inspector Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte of the Queensland Police Force, a mixed race indigenous Australian. This his last book in the series is set along the Darling River in NSW.

Published by Heinemann, London in 1963. Octavo, 232 pages, a little age along the top edge, but really as good a copy. Very clean internally. Solid jacket

One of “Bony’s” toughest mysteries. William Lush, sheep station owner and drunk beats his wife and goes to town in search of more grog. Returning he runs out of fuel and walks the remainder of the way home where he finds the door barred by his daughter who fires as shot from the other side. Lush disappears and his wife dies from her injuries … Bony is confronted with a dilemma is he searching for a murderer or a victim .. it all gets quite complicated.

Collectable and final Arthur Upfield Mystery

$70.00

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Little Ragged Blossom and more about Snugglepot and Cuddlepie – May Gibbs – First Edition c 1920

Published Sydney: Angus Robertson no date but 1920 and a First Edition.

Quarto. Cloth backed pictorial boards with a colour vignette of Little Ragged Blossom pasted on with some wear. The odd mark – on the whole a very good copy.

The wonderful fantasy world of the gum-nut babies portrayed in glorious detail. Illustrated by Gibbs with two full colour plates and twenty wonderful sepia plates as well as pictorial end papers and many line illustrations in-text. Scarce in any condition. Reference the authority Muir 2752.

Little Ragged Blossom a May Gibbs Delight

$240.00

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The Mutineer – A Romance of Pitcairn Island – Louis Becke and Walter Jeffrey – First Colonial (Australian) Edition 1898.

Likely technically the first edition is the London issue of that year. The first and this issue the first Colonial issue by Angus & Robertson both extremely scarce.

Octavo, 298 pages plus Publishers catalogue. Original dark green cloth covered binding, gilt title to spine. The odd mark to the boards, missing front free end paper and occasional light ageing. Otherwise really not bad and, try to find another one.

George Lewis Becke (1855-1913) was born at Port Macquarie and must be regarded as the best Australian author of the period in the genre adventure … South Seas … historical based fiction. He has been compared with Robert Louis Stevenson, Melville, Kipling, Conrad etc exalted company indeed.

Becke had the pedigree – from an early age he escaped to the South Pacific … ferried vessels to Bully Hayes, was tried (and acquitted) as a pirate at Brisbane at the age of 19 etc etc.

Prolific writer once he settled down. This Bounty Mutiny based story one of the later works and a collaboration. Didn’t get into print in the USA as a relationship between different races didn’t fit the then standards.

With a novel we at Voyager always like a good short helpful first sentence. We have the first paragraph here just to get you into the mood.

“It was night at Tahiti, in the Society Islands. The trade-wind had died away, and a bright flood of shimmering moonlight poured down upon the slumbering waters of a little harbour a few miles distant from Matavia Bay, and the white curve of beach that fringed the darkened line of palms shone and glistened like a belt of ivory under the effulgence of its rays. For nearly half a mile the broad sweep of dazzling sand showed no interruption nor break upon its surface save at one spot; there it ran out into a long narrow point, on which, under a small cluster of graceful cocos, growing almost at the water’s edge, a canoe was drawn up”.

Louis Becke’s scarce and somewhat controversial South Seas story.

$120.00

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Bony & The white Savage – Arthur Upfield – First edition 1961

A hard to find first edition published by Heinemann, London in 1961.

Octavo, 230 pages, reproduction dust jacket. Ownership details on title; free end paper with a piece cut out. Otherwise a very clean and bright copy of an often badly foxed edition.

An old timer in the deep south-west of Western Australia spots a violent criminal on his way back to the caves of Rhudder’s Inlet. Inspecter Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte is called in with his tracker Lew. What they find leaves them shaken to the core.

Bony discovers strange goings on in the very south-west.

$60.00

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Larger than Life – Twenty Stories by Xavier Herbert – First Edition 1963

Twenty entertainments by the distinguished author of the monumental Capricornia.

Published by Angus and Robertson. Octavo, 248 pages of solid yarns all connected to the Far North of Australia (Xavier Herbert country) ranging from Cooktown in Far North Queensland right across to Darwin in the Northern Territory. A super copy in a clean complete dust jacket of period style.

A lengthy Preface written by the author from his home on the beautiful Mossman Beach in the Far North helps the reader nicely into the collection.

Our favourites Marrying Money; Kaijek the Songman; An Eagle called Ned Kelly; Rise and Fall of Jeremiah Stacey and the last little ditty appropriately named “Last Toss”.

Superior short stories from Northmost Australia.

$35.00

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The Lake Frome Monster – Arthur Upfield – First edition

Madman’s Bend – Arthur Upfield – First Edition 1963

Little Ragged Blossom and more about Snugglepot and Cuddlepie – May Gibbs – First Edition c 1920

The Mutineer – A Romance of Pitcairn Island – Louis Becke and Walter Jeffrey – First Colonial (Australian) Edition 1898.

Bony & The white Savage – Arthur Upfield – First edition 1961

Larger than Life – Twenty Stories by Xavier Herbert – First Edition 1963

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