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Mandatory Masquerade
Trina Beaumont
Sydney [Ulladulla]: The Seahorse Club of Australia, 1981.Illustrated novella published by Seahorse, Australia’s first transgender support organisation. Authored by Trina Beaumont (formerly Trina Taylor), long-time editor of the club’s newsletter, Feminique, and a media advocate for the organisation during the 1970s. At the time, Seahorse primarily served heterosexual men who enjoyed cross-dressing, presenting members as ordinary men who occasionally adopted female attire. The novella includes illustrations by Di Ward and represents a rare example of early Australian transgender literature and community-produced publishing. A single copy recorded in OCLC, at the State Library of New South Wales.
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Carrousel Club South Australia, September 1994
Carrousel Club
Adelaide: Carrousel Club, 1994.Single issue of the newsletter of the South Australian crossdressing organisation, Carrousel Club. Contains an invitation to The Elaine Barrie Project Awards, a grumble on meeting RSVPs, an article from the 11 August 1994 Advertiser on an a premiere of Priscilla, and more.
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Transformation: Turning Men into Beautiful Women
Transformation
Manchester: Transformation, No date.Mail-order catalogue for Transformation, the English transsexual mail-order company founded in 1984 by Stephanie Anne Booth (1946-2016). The firm supplied clothing, cosmetics, prosthetics, wigs, and accessories for transsexual and cross-dressing clientele, and became one of the first British businesses to openly serve this market. Booth’s entrepreneurial ventures under the Transformation banner later extended to a gender identity clinic, a contact and dating magazine, and other related services. Her activities occasionally drew controversy, culminating in her arrest for running a bawdy house in connection with a massage service operated under the same name. This catalogue reflecting some of the risque aspects of her business, featuring titillating photography and fetishwear alongside transformation aids and fashion items.
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Bushwalking Around Sydney
Paddy Pallin
Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1959.Guidebook by the famed Australian bushwalker and camping equipment retailer Frank Austin “Paddy” Pallin. Pallin was a founding member of the Search and Rescue arm of the Confederation of Bushwalking Clubs NSW in 1936 and his chain of stores are still operating today.
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The Expected Good End, in Three Parts
S. M. Ish Yeminy
London: L. Alexander, 1800.Rare Anglo-Sephardi Judaica theological work linking Jewish messianic exegesis with Enlightenment-era cosmopolitanism. Part 1 (and the only published) of a planned three part work by the Sephardi rabbi and Freemason Solomon Mordecai Ximenes; Containing, The Birth of Jacob, his Dream of the Ladder, his Commandments, and his several prophetic Blessings to his Posterity; and various future Events promised by the Prophets. ROTH, Magna Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica p. 332 19a. Provenance: Signature and label of the Sydney lay preacher G. P. Beyfus, label of Mr. Pulver, library call number to spine matching others from the collection of the Rabbi L. A. Falk Memorial Library, The Great Synagogue Sydney (deaccessioned with no other library markings).
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Les Fleurs du Mal
Charles Baudelaire; Armand Rassenfosse; Henri Noulhac
Paris: Les Cent Bibliophiles, 1899.One of 115 numbered copies of the first, and widely considered the best, illustrated edition of The Flowers of Evil, being the chef d’oeuvre of Belgian artist Armand Rassenfosse, with nearly every page of the text illustrated with Symbolist colour etchings and nude women. This copy from the collection of actor and bibliophile Barry Humphries, with his bookplate; bound in a fine binding signed Noulhac 1918, with multi-rule borders and silk doublures framed with inlaid leather strips and flowers at the corners. Illustrated with a portrait frontispiece, throughout with hundreds of colour illustrations and tailpieces, as well as 6 plates and a page of text with tailpiece outside of the text. Bound at the rear is a Juin 1897 Specimen being the leaf of XX La Geante with an alternative tailpiece illustration and the chapter plate for Les Fleurs du Mal, an etched menu cover for a Les Cent Bibliophiles Dinner for Fleurs du Mal, 6 Mai 1901 by Rassenfosse, as well as 17 additional etchings by Evert van Muyden and other artists.
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Les Paradis Artificiels: Opium et Haschisch
Charles Baudelaire
Paris: Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 1860.First edition of Baudelaire’s Artificial Paradises, on the drug experiences of hashish and opium and their relationship with creative expression, being accounts from within the walls of Le Club des Haschischins and a translation and adaptation of Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. CARTERET I:126. This copy rebound in a fine half leather binding without the wrappers.
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The Idol: Opium, Heroin, Morphine and Their Kingdoms
Dr. Cantala
New York: Botwen Printing Co., 1924.Considered one of the scarcest books in all of psychoactive drug literature and one of the most important on opiate addiction, predicting the development of synthetic opioids by some 35 years. “Devoted to the medical and social uses of opiates, including sections on opium dens, needlemania, the psychology of the addict, the nature of opiate intoxication, love among addicts, etc. There are chapters on cocaine and hashish, and another on Dr. Cantala’s method of cure.” (William Dailey via Gertz: Dope Menace pp. 30). One of a small number bound in cloth with the original wrapper illustration mounted. 4 copies recorded in OCLC, all in the United States.
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Salome. Drame en un acte.
Oscar Wilde
Paris and Londres: Librairie de L’Art Independant and Elkin Mathew et John Lane, 1893.First edition, one of 600 copies, the title page device by Felicien Rops. MASON 348. This copy rebound in a fine signed art nouveau binding by Hatchards, Piccadilly, without the wrappers, with a plentiful quantity of blank leaves at the rear to allow for the binding design.
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Les Amours de Psyche et de Cupidon
J. De La Fontaine
Paris: Defer de Maisonneuve, 1791.The Loves of Psyche and Cupid by Jean De La Fontaine with colour illustrations based on paintings by M. Schall. One of the most striking editions of Fontaine’s adaptation of the story of Cupid and Psyche with coloured stipple engravings by Bonnefoy, Mme Demonchy, and Colibert after Jean-Frederic Schall. This copy with the advertisement leaf (often lacking) announcing the publication of Milton’s Paradise Lost, with an additional portrait engraving frontispiece by Edelinck after H. Rigault, and an original drawing dedication “quatre amis dont la connaissance avait commence par le Parnasse” [four friends whose acquaintance had begun at Parnassus]: La Fontaine, Racine, Moliere, and Boileau, in pen and Indian ink enhanced with gold and colouring on vellum signed L. Benard 1893, bound in a fine signed binding by the Paris bookbinder Salvador David (1859-1929).
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Theatrum Botanicum: The Theater of Plants. Or, An Herball of Large Extent
John Parkinson
London: Tho. Cotes, 1640.Containing therein a more ample and exact History and declaration of the Physicall Herbs and Plants that are in other Authours, encreased by the accesse of many hundreds of new, rare, and strange Plants from all the parts of the world, with sundry Gummes and other Physicall materials, than hath beene hitherto published by any before; And a most large demonstration of their Natures and Venues. Shewing withall the many errors, differences, and oversights of sundry Authors that have formerly written of them; and a certaine confidence, or most probable conjecture of the true and genuines Herbes and Plants. Distributes into sundry Classes or Tribes. The monumental work of herbal medicine by the English herbalist and botanist John Parkinson (1567-1650) in which over 3,800 plants are described and illustrated by approximately 2,600 woodcut illustrations. Theatrum Botanicum was a standard reference for apothecaries for over a century after it was published.
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Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, Chiefly Concerning Nitrous Oxide, or Dephlogisticated Nitrous Air, and Its Respiration
Humphry Davy
London: J. Johnson, 1800.Researches, Chiefly Concerning Nitrous Oxide. Published when Davy was only 22, outlining his experiments with nitrous, coining the term laughing gas, and suggesting to its anesthetic qualities, which were not regularly used in medicine for many years to come. A landmark work in chemistry and anesthesia. Provenance: Pencil signature of British crime writer and anaesthetist William Stanley Sykes (1894-1961) with three lines of pencil annotation to front free endpaper.
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Remember, Be Here Now
Ram Dass
San Cristobel: Lama Foundation, 1971.First edition, first printing, of the psychedelic/yoga/philosophy/counterculture classic by LSD spiritualist Ram Dass nee Harvard Professor Richard Alpert.
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Weirdo No. 1
Robert Crumb
Berkeley: Last Gasp, 1981.“Picking up where Zap left off, Weirdo defined a new aesthetic for the ’80s, opening the way towards a new wave of comics literacy for a generation of outcasts, oddballs and revolutionaries. Weirdo #1, helmed by Robert Crumb, features comics from Crumb, satiric ads, photo-funnies from “Stomp” Gamos and Weirdo staff, Stanislav Szukalski, Bruce Duncan, Brueghel, a Sub-Genius spread and more!” (publisher’s blurb)
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Coffee: Its History, Cultivation, and Uses
Robert Hewitt, Jr.
New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1872.19th century history of coffee. Brief mention of Australia’s potential as a coffee growing region, as well a global listing of tariffs on coffee, including Australian colonies. This copy signed by the author, and with the world map, A Chart of the Globe Showing the Several Places Where Coffee is or May be Produced and Where it is also used together with The Telegraph Lines in operation or contemplated for completing the Circuit of the Globe, considered the first American map on coffee.
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A Manual of Homoeopathic Cookery, Designed Chiefly for the Use of Such Persons as Are under Homoeopathic Treatment.
The Wife of a Homoeopathic Physician
London: G. Borwon, 1846.A cookbook for the burgeoning devotees of homeopathy.
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The Olive and Its Products
Lewis A. Bernays
Brisbane: James C. Beal, Government Printer, 1872.A Treatise on the Habits, Cultivation, and Propagation of the Tree; and upon the Manufacture of Oil and Other Products Therefrom. Early publication on developing an olive industry in Queensland. Lewis Adolphus Bernays (1831-1908) was the first Clerk of the Queensland Legislative Assembly and as a foundation member of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society devoted to introducing exotic species for commercial purposes wrote a number of papers on economic botany. FERGUSON 6952.
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The Economic Consequences of the Peace
John Maynard Keynes
London: Macmillan and Co., 1919.First edition, first printing of the highly influential economics work published in the wake of WWI, establishing Keynes’ as one of the world’s leading economists.
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Armed with Madness
Mary Butts; Jean Cocteau
London: Wishart & Company, 1928.Experimental novel based on the myth of the Holy Grail. A one time student of Aleister Crowley, Butts is credited as a co-author of the 1912 Magick (Book 4). In 1921 she spent time at Crowley’s Abbey of Thelema, not enjoying her stay, and departing with a drug habit. Armed with Madness explores the relationships (including homoeroticism and bisexuality) and ritualism among a group of young bohemians living at a country home. Considered a masterpiece of Modernist prose. One of 100 numbered copies of the Deluxe Edition on handmade paper with illustrations by Jean Cocteau.
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Les Ames du Purgatoire
Prosper Merimee; Hermann Paul
Paris: Rene Kieffer, 1929.The Souls of Purgatory, short story retelling of the myth of Don Juan, the first edition with fifteen watercolours by Hermann Paul. One of a numbered edition of 450 copies on wove paper (of a total edition of 480), this copy bound by French bookbinder Rene Kieffer (1875-1964) in a fine full leather binding with an elaborate star, heart, and chain blind design to both boards, with his ticket to the endpaper, the original wrappers bound in.