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Les Civilises
Claude Farrere; Henri Le Riche
Paris: Librairie de la Collection des Dix, 1926.French colonizers indulge in fornication, opium, and general debauchery in late 19th century Saigon (then French Cochincina, modern day Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam). One of 200 numbered copies of Arches vellum (of a total edition of 300), bound with the original wrappers.
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La Mort de Philae
Pierre Loti; Geo Colucci
Paris: Editions Rene Kieffer, 1924.The Death of Philae (English title: Egypt), a tale set around the submerging of the island of Philae with the construction of the Aswan Low Dam on the river Nile. The first edition with illustrations by Geo Colucci. One of 460 numbered copies on vellum (of a total edition of 500), in a fine half leather binding signed Ch. De Samblax with the original wrappers bound in.
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Le Diable Amoureux
Jacques Cazotte; Paul-Emile Becat
Paris: La Tradition, 1936.The Devil in Love. Occult romance first published in 1772. This the first edition with erotic illustrations by Becat. One of 450 numbered copies on Arches vellum (of a total edition of 500).
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Le Diable au Corps
Raymond Radiguet; Paul-Emile Becat
Paris: Editions Georges Gullot, 1957.The Devil in the Flesh. The story of a young married woman’s affair with a teenage boy while her husband is away fighting in WWI. First published in 1923, this is the first edition with erotic illustrations by Becat, and with an introduction by Jean Cocteau. The superlative issue, one of 16 numbered copies on Japanese paper with an original signed drawing in pencil and white gouache, with the composition then hand coloured and signed by Becat, the 16 illustrations by Becat hand coloured by Jean and Paulette Monnier, followed by a suite containing the illustrations in black in two states, on Japanese paper and Rives vellum.
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La Fille aux Yeux d’Or
Honore de Balzac; Almery Lobel-Riche
Paris: Le Livre du Bibliophile, G. & R. Briffaut, 1923.The Girl with the Golden Eyes. An aristocratic libertine becomes obsessed with a beautiful woman and sets about seducing her. Alas, his conquest uncovers a hidden lesbian relationship and he finds himself entangled in web of erotic obsession and fatal jealousy. First published in 1835, this is the first edition with illustrations by Almery Lobel-Riche. One of 40 numbered copies on Japanese paper with the etchings in 3 states and an original drawing by Lobel-Riche (from a total edition of 500). This copy in a fine signed binding by H. Jacquet.
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Ars Amandi. L’Art D’Aimer
Ovide; Pierre Lievre; Andre Lambert
Paris: Le Livre du Bibliophile, G. & R. Briffaut, 1923.The Art of Love by Ovid, a new translation into French by Pierre Lievre and with illustrations by Andre Lambert. One of 404 numbered copies on Arches vellum (from a total edition of 500), this copy for Maurice de Smet de Naeyer, bound in half leather signed Weckesser.
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Les Sept Femmes de La Barbe-Bleue et Autres Contes Merveilleux
Anatole France; G. A. Mossa
Paris: Librairie Des Amaterus, A. Ferroud. – F. Ferroud, 1921.Bluebeard’s Seven Wives and Other Wonderful Tales. France’s reinterpretation of the French folktale of Bluebeard. First published in 1909, this is the first edition with illustrations by Gustav-Adolf Mossa. One of 70 numbered copies on Japanese paper with the etchings in 3 states (from a total edition of 1,200). This copy from the collection of Australian actor and bibliophile Barry Humphries, with his bookplate, in a fine signed binding by Flammarion bookbinder Jean Vaillant.
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The Dog in Australasia
Walter Beilby
Melbourne: George Robertson and Company, 1897.The first Australian dog breeder’s manual. FERGUSON 6885.
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The Edible Mollusks of Great Britain and Ireland with Recipes for Cooking Them
M. S. Lovell
London: Reeve & Co., 1867.The definitive work on the subject of edible snails, shellfish, oysters, mussels, etc. This copy with the Reeve & Co. 24 page 1867 catalogue of publications in Botany, Conchology, Entomology, Chemistry, Travels Antiquities, etc. at the rear.
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Groups of Fruit, Accurately Drawn and Coloured After Nature, with Full Directions for the Young Artist: Designed as a Companion to the Treatises on Flowers and Birds.
George Brookshaw
London: For William Stockdale by Augustus Applegath and Henry Mitton, 1817.The rare first edition of the second part of the three part treatise on natural history painting by the English artist and author of Pomono Britannica, George Brookshaw (c.1751-1823). Each plate: Apples, Apricots, Cherries, Currants, Pears, Plums; is presented in two states, un-coloured and with hand-colouring, and each is accompanied by 1 or 2 pages of instructive text. This copy complete, but with the plates bound in alphabetical order, rather than the order of the instructive text.
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Condoman Says: Don’t Be Shame Be Game. Use Condoms!
Department of Health, Housing and Community Services, Aboriginal Health Workers of Australia (Queensland)
Queensland: Department of Health, Housing and Community Services, Aboriginal Health Workers of Australia, No date.Early/mid 1990s issue of the iconic Aboriginal HIV/AIDS awareness campaign poster (the earliest issues captioned USE FRENCHIES! instead of condoms). Originally conceived in 1987 by Aunty Gracelyn Smallwood and a small team of Aboriginal health workers in Townsville, Queensland, Condoman became one of the most successful Australian sexual health campaigns.
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Homonopolis: The Most Gayotic Game
Stef de Knegt; Alexander M. Kroner
Amsterdam: Studio Fab / Identity Games International, 1994.Dutch Gay Monopoloy adaptation. Differing form the American Gay Monopoly published in 1983 (and much better rated according to Board Game Geek). In Homonopolis players travel around a triangular board cruising the gay bars and venues of Amsterdam. Instead of building houses and hotels players purchase barkeepers and backrooms. Jail is replaced with an SM Cellar where instead of Just Visiting you are Just Peeping Through the Glory Holes. Everything you might expect . The rulebook and the board are bilingual in Dutch and English. At 138 pages the book goes well beyond explaining the game, delving into the gay history of the Netherlands as well as an extensive directory of services, illustrated throughout by photographs of gay Amsterdam in the 1990s and with advertisements for a colourful assortment of local gay businesses that sponsored the production of the game.
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Songs of Central Australia
T. G. H. Strehlow
Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1971.“The first complete account of the poetic heritage of the aboriginal people of Central Australia; an analysis of aboriginal songs as fully-developed oral literature, and their evaluation as authoritative documents of aboriginal religion” (from original prospectus). One of the scarcest and most sought after works on Aboriginal life. “You could describe it as the Torah of Central Australia.” (Barry Hill)
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Handbook of Australian Fungi
M. C. Cooke
London: Williams and Norgate for the Departments of Agriculture in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Hobarton, 1892.The first monograph on Australian fungi by English botanist and mycologist Mordecai Cubitt Cooke (1825-1914). Containing descriptions of 2079 species of macrofungi, microfungi, and slime moulds (or myxomycetes), of which 377 figures are illustrated across 36 plates. The samples which the handbook are based on were supplied by Ferdinand von Muller, Flora Martin, F. M. Bailey, Sven Berggren, and others, and shipped to Cooke in England. This distance limited the accuracy of the work, nevertheless, as the first volume devoted to the subject its historical import cannot be understated and remains a key work in any Australian mushroom collection.
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The Bells and other Poems
Edgar Allan Poe; Edmund Dulac
London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1912.The deluxe edition of the poems of Edgar Allan Poe featuring The Bells, The Raven, and others. Illustrated with 28 tipped in colour plates and additional vignettes by Edmund Dulac and published in a numbered edition of 750 copies signed by Dulac.
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Expedition Antarctique Belge. Au Pays des Manchots: Recit du Voyage de la Belgica
Georges Lecointe
Bruxelles: Societe Belge de Libraire, 1904.Account of the captain of the RV Belgica, the second in command of the first Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1899. Considered the first expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, it was the first expedition to spend the entire winter in the region. Trapped in the ice for a year, they were ill prepared, the polar night driving a number of the crew mad and with scurvy setting in they were forced to subsist on penguin (largely considered inedible). Despite the challenges much scientific data was gathered including around 700 rock samples, for the first time meteorological observations were recorded for a full Antarctic year, and 188 new animal species were discovered. This superlative copy bound in full vellum with leather labels and decorative endpapers, and with a bound in manuscript letter dated 26 July 1904 from Lecointe to Madame Van Halteren requesting her to give the book to her daughter, Miss Van Halteren, signed by Lecointe, also with his monogram stamp and the stamp of the Royal Observatory of Belgium.
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Herbier de la France: Histoire des Champignons
Pierre Bulliard; M. Walhein
Paris: Pierre Bulliard, No date.219 manuscript watercolour plates by M. Walhein, a Member of French Mycological Society, from the originals by French physician and botanist Jean Baptiste Francois Pierre Bulliard (1752-1793). Bound in quarter leather with a typescript index to the plates.
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Chemical Atlas; or, The Chemistry of Familiar Objects
Edward L. Youmans
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1856.Exhibiting the General Principles of the Science in a Series of Beautifully Colored Diagrams, and Accompanied by Explanatory Essays, Embracing the Latest Views of the Subjects Illustrated. Edward Livingston Youmans (1821-1887) was an American scientific writer, editor, and lecturer, and founder of Popular Science magazine. Youmans’ Chemical Atlas is one of the 19th century’s pioneering publications of science popularization, with striking colour plates both conveying information and capturing the imagination, and was featured in the William Reese exhibition Stamped with a National Character: Nineteenth Century American Color Plate Books: “This chemistry textbook was a pioneering publication in the use of color to convey quantitative information”. There are recorded printings each year between 1854 and 1857. This 1856 edition being the third year of printing and from the collection of the renowned neurologist, author, and educator Dr. Oliver Sacks, with his bookplate laid in.
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The Mycophagists’ Book
Patricia Healy Evans
San Francisco: The Peregrine Press, 1951.A treatise on the cooking and eating of mushrooms. A fine American private press production limited to 175 copies. This copy inscribed by the author and the printer. VOLBRACHT 567.
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Woolloomooloo: Save The Loo Now
Brenda Humble
Sydney: Inner Sydney Regional Council for Social Development, 1976.A record of the fight of residents and unions to preserve the working class residences of the Sydney suburb of Woolloomooloo that came under threat by developers in the 1970s. Includes a photographic record of many buildings, as well as resident reflections, protest chants, organising posters, and newsclippings from the time.