[DILKE, Sir Charles Wentworth].

The Fall of Prince Florestan of Monaco. By himself.

London, Macmillan 1874. Octavo half calf (a small chip from the spine); [4],79pp, map and one plate. Ex parliamentary library with their gilt crest on the front board and incorporated into the spine, no other markings; scattered spots but a good copy.
¶ First edition and something of a hit - printed in March there were three more printings by July. A light hearted satire charting the fate of a radical Cambridge educated prince attempting to apply liberal reform; and meant to satirise the British public's view of Dilke and his republican leanings. Offered anonymously to Macmillan, apparently they first refused it because it had too many slighting references to Dilke himself. When published it was taken by many to be an attack on Dilke by Matthew Arnold.

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Book number: 6039

Keywords: literature fiction satire c19th England

[HOBSON, Benjamin].

[Hakubutsu Shinpen].

Tokyo, 1874 (Meiji 7). Three volumes, 255x173mm, publisher's yellow wrappers with title labels (a bit smudged); wood cut illustrations in all three volumes. Rather good with the original printed outer wrapper loosely inserted and untorn.
¶ Third edition, it seems, of this adaptation of Hobson's Bo Wu Xin Bian first published in Shanghai in 1855 and in Japan in 1864. Hobson wrote a few primers on science and medicine for the Chinese which were then adapted by the Japanese. This covers physics in the first volume - including such things as optics, electricity and hydraulics; astronomy in the second; and zoology in the third.

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Book number: 9658

Keywords: science physics electricity optics astronomy zoology natural history c19th Japan China Asia progress reform meiji

[Hataraku Fujin]. No. 1 to no. 5, no. 8, no. 11 and Vol. 2 no 3/4

Tokyo, Nihon Puroretaria Bunka, Jan - Nov 1932, April 1933 (Showa 7, 8). Eight issues in colour illustrated publisher's wrappers 22x15cm; contents range from about 140pp to about 70pp but the numbering of some issues is alarmingly erratic, b/w illustrations, monochrome photo illustrations. No.8 must have been a troubled issue; it is particularly humble and seems to have been assembled in careless haste. Expected browning of the cheap paper, signs of use but all rather good.
¶ Maybe eight elevenths - or eight thirteenths, or not - of the whole run of this trouble making left wing magazine for the Working Woman. It's hard to untangle. I can't find any complete set of these original copies. A reprint, probably not complete, was made in 1980 which seems to include eleven issues running from January 1932 to a March/April 1933 double issue - eight for 1932 and three for 1933. I found a mention that no issues appeared some months. The issues here are numbered by the month they appeared - which may mean there are gaps in the numbering of a complete run or that there are issues no-one has found. The holdings of 13 university libraries in Japan put together seem to add up to v1(1 -10) for 1932 and v2(1-3) for 1933 but the numbering is iffy even then. Being a communist in Japan in the thirties was a fraught business and the foundation of the Nihon Puroretaria Bunka Renmei - Japanese Proletarian Culture Federation - late 1931 and the flourish of Proletarian books and magazines in 1932 and early 1933 was a last stand of the left. Being gaoled was one thing, being tortured and killed another. In her novel '1932 no Haru' (Spring 1932) writer Miyamoto Yuriko incorporated her editorship of early issues of this magazine, arrest after the April 1932 issue (on the right in the picture here), and the torture and death of poet Konno Dairiki. This wasn't her last arrest and Konno's wasn't the last death. Virtually nothing written in the last few decades on Japanese culture in the twentieth century doesn't mention 'Working Woman' while no-one, it seems, has read or even seen all of them.

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Book number: 10278

Keywords: social science politics feminism women communism Japan c20th modernism progress reform political economy

Exhibition - Tokyo 1922.

[Heiwa Kinen Tokyo Hakurankai Jimu Hokoku].

Tokyo Fucho 1924 (Taisho 13). Two volumes 26x19cm, publisher's embossed wrappers (browned); 681pp, heaps of illustrations: folding colour plans, architectural elevations and plans, photo plates, etc. Browning and foxing expected from the paper but still a rather good fresh copy.
¶ The official report on the 1922 Tokyo Memorial Peace Exposition is the very model of what an official report on an exhibition should be. You could just about rebuild the whole thing from this. The detail extends to measured drawings of light fittings, plans of the garden beds and coloured reproductions of the tickets and advertising. The 1922 Peace Memorial Exhibition, celebrating the League of Nations and a bright future, was the most lavish national Expo ever held. The pavilions were a mix of stately, ultra modern and funfair fairy tale.

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Book number: 10364

Keywords: architecture design international exhibitions Japan Asia c20th modernism progress reform

[Hibiyakoen Tsuru no Funsui Kokei].

Tokyo 1918 (Taisho 7) Colour lithograph 39x55cm. Folded, a nice copy.
¶ There is some warp in time operating around the Hibaya Park fountain where men and women from their grandparents' generation promenade with present day residents and pioneer aviators from the previous decade appear overhead. Only a couple of children seem to notice.

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Book number: 10389

Keywords: graphic art Japan c20th modernism colour lithograph Tokyo meisho

Hints on the Nature and Management of Duns. By the Honourable ____, a Younger Son.

London, T.C. Newby 1845. Octavo contemporary quarter morocco with morocco grain blue cloth sides (spine scuffed); [2],158pp, tinted litho frontispiece, illustrations by R.J. Hamerton through the text. Frontispiece browned with offsetting onto the title.
¶ A useful guide to a specific problem in economics which has wider application, it begins with the twelve miseries of younger sons with reference to duns and finishes with a handy vocabulary. In between are examples of the three stages of correspondence - civil, pressing and peremptory - and responses; lessons in excuses, methods of escape and so on. The notice this received in The Athenaeum is kind enough but is both moralistic and pessimistic: "but the evil [caused by younger sons not duns] is, we fear, too deeply seated to be laughed out of society." The author remains a mystery but the publisher fits the book like a glove: "an incorrigible rogue .... opportunistic, mercenary, crass, sly, suave" are a few terms used by Roger Lathbury describing Newby and his dealings with Emily Bronte ('The Avaricious and the Intransigent'). A companion volume 'Hints on Husband Catching' appeared the next year.

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Book number: 8853

Keywords: literature fiction c19th England humour social history economics guide books

[VAIRASSE d'ALAIS, Denis].

Histoire des Sevarambes, peuples qui habitent .. la Terre Australe, contenant une relation du gouvernement; des moeurs, de la religion, & du langage de cette nation .. nouvelle edition, revue & corrigee.

Amsterdam, Estienne Roger 1716. Two volumes together in 12mo unlettered sheep (an old repair to the spine, some chipping but solid enough); frontispieces (the same in each volume as is normal) and 8 plates.
¶ Maybe the fourth or fifth French edition (there were translations into other European languages) of this fairly famous Austral imaginary voyage and utopia. With new and more plates than earlier editions but I don't know what the advertised revisions and corrections are. Davidson called this "the very rare revised edition" but doesn't elaborate. At the end is a long publisher's catalogue of music.

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Book number: 3576

Keywords: literature fiction c17th France travel imaginary voyages utopia Australia

[GASPEY, Thomas].

The History of George Godfrey. Written by himself.

London, Colburn 1828. Three volumes octavo, recent half calf. Half titles in volumes two and three, not one, as seems proper. A marginal tidemark in a couple of sections toward the end of volume III, stains from the original leather corners at each end; a rather good, fresh copy. On the blank before the title is, in a miniscule hand, something of a review of the book by, I presume, the original reader in which remarks are made about easy recognition of several respectable London criminals: stock brokers, auctioneers, lawyers, police magistrates, ministers, and the like. And the original of Mr Haversham.
¶ Only edition until recent reprints of this rare picaresque crime thriller, usually pulled out by academics as a pioneer Newgate novel; ie the sort of degrading, mean stuff that no gentle reader should read; the sort of stuff that belongs in penny sheets with short words and big type for the low classes, not for anyone who can afford a subscription to a proper lending library. It is, as well, an Australian novel with the major hunk of volume three devoted to our hapless fool transported to New South Wales where he escapes and joins the 'Bush Rangers' around the Windsor/Hunter Valley region. It is, more interesting, also a proper mystery with the darkest deeds unveiled and an evil master mind unmasked by a self appointed detective at the end. This brings us to maybe the most interesting point. Our hero is, as hinted, a hapless, craven idiot with a feeble moral compass and the real hero of the book is the only decent and clever - as opposed to cunning - character who acts as detective and saviour: Mr Haversham, who started life as William Beckford before going into the fictional character business. Haversham is an obscenely rich eccentric who is obsessed with building his overwhelming gothic Priory and tower, behind high walls, and shunned by society for his unproven crime. Haversham's crime was merely the murder of his young wife, not the unsavoury charges against Beckford. I found no suggestion that Gaspey knew Beckford but, through Mr Haversham, he debunks several captious slurs doing the rounds, including the mysterious banquets served every day to the lonesome Beckford. The Monthly Review wrote a friendly and generous review while the Athenaeum padded out pages with excerpts from the book only to condemn it as low trash and likely an evil influence: "From the nature of the book itself, the style of its execution is coarse, vulgar, and often unintelligible and uninteresting, and though some of its exposures may be correct, yet we doubt much if these publications be not injurious." Gaspey wrote to the Athenaeum complaining little about his 'chastising' but defending his research into Godfrey's travels. Both reviewers predicted it would be popular. Gaspey's publisher had money in both these magazines, I believe.Ferguson listed this which, I guess, made Miller/Macartney skip it as non-fiction, so I expected to find it well represented in Australian libraries. Not so, Trove finds only the Mitchell and Monash copies. Not so many anywhere else in the world, either. Wolff had a handful of Gaspey novels but not this while Sadleir ignored him. It does deserve to be in Hubin.

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Book number: 11120

Keywords: literature fiction thrillers crime c19th century triple deckers

[in Russian] Lapti - Laptishchi.

Moscow, Knebel [1914?]. Quarto by size (300x225mm) colour illustrated stiff wrapper; 12pp including covers, each opening with a full page colour illustration and a smaller colour illustration with the facing text.
¶ An attractive, very Russian - colourful, charming and cruel - version of the tale of the wily fox and her victims. The artist eludes me; the binder has trimmed away part of the artist's signature on the front cover and no record for this that I can trace identifies the artist.

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Book number: 8329

Keywords: childrens juvenile folk tales c20th Russia illustation illustrated

Exhibition - Melbourne 1866-67.

Intercolonial Exhibition of Australasia, Melbourne 1866-67. Official Record, containing, introduction, catalogues, reports and awards ... essays and statistics. [and] The Australasian colonies at the International Exhibition, London, 1862. [and] A Treatise on Australian building stones.

Melbourne, Blundell 1867 [1865 & 1864]. Stout octavo publisher's cloth; xliv,9-404,iv,563,102,46pp; folding ground plan, five geological maps and plates (four folding). Minor signs of use, quite good.Presentation copy to Nathaniel Levi - pioneer Jewish politician and businessman, including a stint as a distiller; with a printed slip on the front endpaper and his signature on the back. Loosely inserted is a carte-de-visite portrait by Andrew Rider - an award winner at the exhibition. This may or may not have anything to do with Levi.
¶ As well as the local colonies, New Zealand, New Caledonia and Batavia contributed. As with the 1854 and 1861 exhibitions in Melbourne this was a lead up to sending things on to Europe, in this case the 1867 Paris Universal Exhibition, with the consequence that late visitors to Melbourne were met with some large gaps and sparse remnants in many cases. The extensive series of essays include Brough Smyth on mining, Bleasdale on gems and precious stones, Mueller on vegetation, M'Coy on zoology and palaeontology, Ellery on climate, and much more. The last two works, both by J.G Knight, on the 1862 exhibition and building stones were not added to standard copies, not even to all presentation copies.

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Book number: 10854

Keywords: international exhibitions Australia c19th Paris 1867 material culture trades manufactures applied arts technology science

[Kisha to Norimono].

Osaka, Okamoto Zoshindo 1923 (Taisho 12). 17x18cm publisher's colour illustrated wrapper; [12]pp including wrapper, eight full page illustrations inside. The back wrapper - which is flimsier paper - is browned and creased; a pretty good copy.
¶ Machines and people on the move - what better subject for a book? Better quality than the really cheap akahon (red books) for kids that came out of Osaka but not a lot.

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Book number: 10513

Keywords: childrens juvenile transport trains motoring automobiles aeroplanes aviation technology progress modernism graphic art c20th Japan Asia reform

[PHILP, Robert Kemp].

Life Doubled by the Economy of Time.

London, Houlston & Wright [1859?]. Octavo publisher's decorated cloth blocked in blind and gilt; 160pp, frontispiece. A bit rubbed and the green cloth somewhat faded but quite a good copy with a distinguished provenance: the signature of E.P. Senhouse of Netherhall and in pencil he (she?) notes that it was lent on the 3rd September 1862. Probably just as well, the quite ancient Netherhall and much of its contents were lost through neglect forty to fifty years ago. I see from a tiny note inside the back cover it had reached Steve Finer in Massachusetts by 1996 and it was recently in Michigan but the rest of its history is still blank.
¶ Philp was a prodigious compiler of self help and useful books so clearly his system for redeeming time must work. His frontispiece diagram is a template, not a ready made. It must be impressed into the memory and adapted. Philp himself sees it as a sort of large projection slide which he can "mentally throw ... upon the wall", which seems intrusive. "My Diagram is constantly before me, appealing to me for action." That action can be associated with simple memory prompts; thus the hour 4 (presumably after breakfast?) entry "A - B -'s, Error, Fenning's" would sort out problems in what seems a problematic life - what with this damn wheel following him around - call at A - B -, order more stock and point out the error in their last account; then to Fenning's Wharf to ascertain the delay in delivery of goods. Added to the Diagram are The Tablet, The Diary and The Bioscope. I leave you to figure them out.

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Book number: 8763

Keywords: social sciences time reform progress self help c19th England handbooks memory

Exhibition - London 1873; Melbourne 1872-73 & Vienna 1873.

London International Exhibition of 1873. (Melbourne, 1872-73). Official Record, containing introduction, catalogues, reports and recommendations of the experts, official awards ...

Melbourne, Mason Firth &c 1873. Octavo publisher's cloth (spine ends repaired) ; xxiv,224,viii,44,32,120,160,20,12,17,34,8,30,20pp. First few pages spotted, 1873 stamp of the 'Chief Secretary's Office' on the title.
¶ Quite uncommon. This was the first of the ambitious but fairly short series of annual international exhibitions (begun in 1871) in London to which Victoria sent a major contribution. As was usually the case a preliminary exhibition was held in Melbourne. Here we have the catalogues for this Melbourne Exhibition, the catalogue for the London Exhibition and the catalogue for the Vienna International Exhibition of 1873 in which Victoria also took part. As well as the other reports and stuff there is a series of essays, of which John Bleasdale's "On Wines" (34pp) is probably the most interesting now.Some but not all copies have a map; the State Library of Victoria notes that only one of their copies has a map. This doesn't.

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Book number: 10853

Keywords: exhibitions technology c19th Australia applied arts industry trade history material culture wine alcohol

Exhibition - Melbourne 1880.

Melbourne International Exhibition, 1880. The Official Catalogue of the Exhibits, with introductory notices of the countries exhibiting.

Melbourne, Mason Firth &c 1880. Two volumes octavo bound together in contemporary half red gilt calf (edges a bit rubbed or scuffed); xvi,308;xvi,364pp, folding plan and some illustrations in the text. An attractive copy.
¶ Second and better edition - late arrivals missed by the first edition have been included and "considerable improvements" and "extended notices" have been incorporated. So it is now "a complete record of the numerous exhibits".

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Book number: 8474

Keywords: international exhibitions catalogues c19th Australia trades technology material culture applied arts

[BERTOLDI, Giuseppe ? or Jakob Bartholdy?]

Memoirs of the Secret Societies of the South of Italy, particularly the Carbonari.

London, John Murray 1821. Octavo contemporary calf (front hinge neatly repaired); xvi,235pp and 12 lithographs by Hullmandel, seven folding including a charming large folding view of a meeting shrouded in smoke or mist. A few spots, a nice fresh copy with half title.
¶ First edition; it was written in French, a second language for the author, with the view of being translated and published in London. The attribution to Giuseppe Bertoldi is unlikely as far as I can see; the Risorgimento poet was barely born when this appeared. German librarians confidently ascribe the book to Jakob Ludwig Salomon Bartholdy - the Prussian Consul-General in Rome - and other librarians have attributed it to a Bertoldi without forename.

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Book number: 9281

Keywords: social sciences history c19th Italy politics reform progress