Queensland

The Invisible Island – Alexander MacDonald – 1911

A Story of the Far North of Queensland … by Alexander McDonald and illustrated by Charles M Sheldon.

Published by Blackie & Sons, London, Glasgow, octavo 360 pages with pictorial image to front cover and spine. A little age otherwise a very good copy and especially clean internally.

The book opens on an island in the south west of the Gulf of Carpentaria … “Through the dank, shimmering heat haze the island loomed in ghostly outline”

Six full page illustrations including the frontispiece.

Adventure and gold in the Far North

$60.00

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Australian – Blue Bonnet Parrakeet – Greene – 1884

Original wood cut hand finished engraving of the multicoloured Bluebonnet Parrot from “Parrots in Captivity”, published in London 1884.

The Bluebonnets inhabit the south and central interior, they are quite plentiful and thankfully not popular as cage birds. Even at the time of this image they were considered too aggressive for captivity. Tough little guys.

Greene’s delightful work comprising wood-engraved plates printed by Benjamin Fawcett after drawings by A.F. Lydon. The prints are hand finished with delicate highlighting in gum arabic to accentuate the bright colouring.

Benjamin Fawcett was one of the great colour printers of the 19th century. He pioneered a system of wood block engraving from multiple blocks that resulted in vivid finely coloured works. Fawcett had an association of some 50 years with Francis Orpen Morris to produce many beautiful works on birds. The engravings are the finest illustrations of parrots from the period.

Price $140.00unframe or $260.00 framed in Voyager Natural History style.

Blue Bonnet in all his glory … click on me to see my beauty!

$140.00

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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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Harold Effermere – A Story of the Queensland Bush – Michael Costello – First Edition 1897

Published by Swan Sonnenschien, London a first edition 1897. Octavo 309 pages in original green cloth covered binding with embossed design to front and git titling to spine. Showing some signs of age but still a very good copy of a rare work.

A superb and rare late 19thC novel based in the Queensland bush – country horse race rigging at its best. A great Australian yarn.

The author Michael Costello was the eldest son of pioneer, pastoralist and explorer John Costello. As a young lad the author often accompanied his dad on risky expeditions driving stock great distances in the bush in difficult conditions. Michael’s biography on his father published much later c1930 is one of our favourite pioneer accounts, almost impossible to find.

Whilst we find the dodgy horse racing elements the most amusing aspect of “Harold Effermere” we also learn to put your swag on the western side of a bush to avoid the morning sun and never to make your tea in the beef billy unless you want tea soup!

Early and rare Queensland Bush Story from a True Blue Bush Boy.

$90.00

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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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The Invisible Island – Alexander MacDonald – 1911

Australian – Blue Bonnet Parrakeet – Greene – 1884

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

Harold Effermere – A Story of the Queensland Bush – Michael Costello – First Edition 1897

Map of Colony of Queensland 1895

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

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