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Flore Medicale, Decrite par F. O.
F. P. Chaumeton
Paris: C. L. F. Panckoucke, 1814-1820.Monumental early nineteenth-century French work on medicinal and edible plants, authored by Francois Pierre Chaumeton, Jean Louis Marie Poiret, and Jean-Baptitse-Joseph-Anne-Cesar Turbas de Chamberet. The first six volumes, beginning with Absinthe comprise 360 hand-coloured stipple engravings by Ernestine Panckoucke (the publisher’s wife) and Pierre-Jean-Francois Turpin, produced at the height of the French stipple engraving tradition pioneered by Pierre-Joseph Redoute, a fantastic example of early nineteenth-century botanical art publishing. The final two volumes complete the work with extensive text on pharmacological uses and additional plates, including two large engraved folding tables, forming a comprehensive encyclopaedia of materia medica as understood at the end of the Napoleonic era. NISSEN BBI 349. This copy with the additional corrected description of plate XXI. From the collection of English horticulturalist, Maria Theresa Earle, with her bookplate in each volume, also the plate, name and address of American Rhododendron collector Dr. Paul Jay Bowman. This edition unrecorded in Australian collections, with only one institutional holding of any edition located, the 6-volume second edition (1828-1833) at the University of Melbourne.
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Public Fitting
Tim Johnson
Sydney: Tim Johnson, 1972.A 1972 artist’s book by Sydney conceptual artist (now painter) Tim Johnson (1947-), containing 40 full page black and white street photographs which show the wind lifting the skirts of women on the streets of Sydney. Produced during his time as co-founder of one of Sydney’s first artist-run spaces, Inhibodress, alongside Mike Parr and Peter Kennedy, the work forms a key part of Johnson’s early-1970s investigations into public space, social conditioning, and eroticism. While the images might initially appear voyeuristic (see upskirt), they are best understood through the lens of his contemporaneous performances, Disclosure and Fittings. Those live works staged situations to expose and analyze unconscious “sexual mores” and “sex-role conditioning”, manipulating participants’ clothing in a gallery, provoking direct responses. Public Fitting explores similar themes through the “found performance” of the street, framing the wind as an unwitting collaborator and the women’s reactions as unscripted data on social behaviour. Published alongside a Super 8 film of the same name (featuring different images as compared with the film in the collection of the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane), the film’s duration underscores the work’s non-erotic, analytical dimension. In contrast, the book’s static images are more readily misread as purely voyeuristic. This copy bears a later manuscript title on the spine, “Public Fitting – XXX”, a direct annotation of the work’s perceived erotic content, demonstrating the very social-sexual condition the artist sought to examine. Beyond this conceptual framework, the work also serves a vidid record of women’s fashion in early-1970s Sydney, an era dominated by the miniskirt. The edition size is unstated, though several sources, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, state that 200 copies were produced. This copy with an additional folded sheet containing 5 further small images of a woman’s underwear (perhaps from a different source), the artist’s stamp with his 54 Albermarle St address, and the contemporary signature Micheal [Mansell?] dated 17th/4/72.
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Mushrooms, Russia and History
Valentina Pavolvna Wasson; R. Gordon Wasson
New York: Pantheon Books, 1957.The founding work of ethnomycology. One of 512 numbered copies.
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade)
Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens)
London: Chatto & Windus, 1884.The first UK edition published prior to the US edition with the first issue advertisements dated October 1884. BAL 3414.
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Hustlers
Philip-Lorca diCorcia
Gottingen: Steidl, 2013.Oversize photo book by American photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia (1953-) documenting male prostitutes. “I took the Hustler photographs following a period of repressive stomping on the U.S. Constitution’s First Amemdment, “Freedom of Speech”. An appropriate personification of the moment would be Jesse Helms, a man deeply committed to his bigotry. He was responsible for a lot of the stomping. In 1989, the National Endowment for the Arts was attacked for supporting a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition that was canceled as a result. In the same year, the money I received from the NEA had a proviso attached which required that I not transgress “American” values; at least that is how I remember it. I’ll be it was more onerous. Other artist recipients called for a boycott, or some kind of protest. I decided to beat Mr. Helms et al. at their own game, mendacity. I paid the “hustlers” in these photographs with the money awarded to me by the NEA. The price was meant to be the normal cost for the lowest common denominator of street sex. Of course it varies. Hustlers lie a lot too. I’ve included in the titles the name, age, hometown, and price paid of each one, as an emphatic declaration of the identity mutation and the taxonomy of the project implied. And, as a report to the government of its well-spent dollars. (from artist’s statement) A selection of 21 of the photographs were exhibited in diCorcia’s first museum show, Strangers, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1993. Here for the first time the complete series is published in it entirety.
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Kings Cross Sydney: A Personal Look at the Cross
Rennie Ellis; Wesley Stacey
Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1971.Documentation of Sydney’s Kings Cross in the early 1970s. Showgirls, servicemen, freaks, hippies, sex, drugs, music art, and more. Features a spread on The Witch of Kings Cross, Rosaleen Norton.
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Expressions of Lovemaking
Wesley Stacey; Rennie Ellis
Sydney: Pontiac, 1972.Rare early erotic photo book by Australian photographer Wesley Stacey (1941-2023), issued the year before he co-founded the Australian Centre for Photography. A period document of liberated sexuality and countercultural aesthetics, the work pairs Stacey’s intimate colour photographs of a young couple (shot in settings including a cave, penthouse, pool, bedroom, and beach), with the sensual poetry of fellow photographer Rennie Ellis (1940-2003). Stylistically rooted in the late-1960s and early-1970s Australian bohemian milieu. Exceptionally scarce: a single holding recorded in Trove and OCLC (Curtin University). The work is otherwise unrecorded in writings on either Stacey or Ellis. The only public reference to its existence appears in a 1976 ruling of the New Zealand Indecent Publications Tribunal, which described it as “another publication consisting of photographs of sexual intercourse with a small amount of text. It is serious in intention, though not didactic, natural and restrained in presentation with a straightforward text. The photographs depict basic variations of normal intercourse without any of the tasteless or debasing acrobatics which have marred other similar publications… Having regard to the changing times and standards and the dominant effect of this publication the tribunal considers that a restricted classification in this case is not necessary. The tribunal classifies this publication as not indecent.” (The New Zealand Gazette No. 117, 18 November 1976)
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Erotica Varia: A Collection of Drawings by Xaqis
Charis Schwarz
Sydney: Herd Publishing Company, No date.The erotic drawings of Charis Schwarz issued in the early 1970s by Australian pornography publisher, Herd Publishing, at the same time as Charis together with husband George were producing a series of ground-breaking pornographic films, including the first explicit Australian sex film to be cleared by the censors for distribution in cinemas. Rare, a single institutional holding, at the State Library of New South Wales, as part of the George and Charis Schwarz collection presented to the State Library by the artists in 2019.
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Flagellees: La Flagellation des Femmes dans la Rome Antique
Jean de Virgans
Paris: Librairie Franco-Anglaise, 1922.1920s French flagellation novel with illustrations by Gaston Smit signed in the image as both G. Smit and G. Topfer.
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International Mr. Leather: 25 Years of Champions
Joseph W. Bean
Las Vegas and Chicago: Nazca Plains and The Leather Archives & Museum, 2004.A thoroughly illustrated year-by-year chronicle of the world’s premier gay leather contest, founded by Chuck Resnlow in Chicago in 1979. Australia entered the IML story early: Patrick Brooks, the winner of IML 1980, became the first non-American titleholder and remains one of the most competition’s most controversial champsions. Brooks and his sponsor reportedly believed that winning the titled conferred hosting rights for the following year’s event, and briefly announced plans for IML 1981 to be held in Sydney before organisers clarified that the contest would remain in Chicago. Despite this misunderstanding, the Australian leather scene flourished, with Mr. Australia Leather contests continuing through the 1980s and 1990s, regularly sending representatives to IML. Notably, Australians achieved two runner-up finishes: Brent Lacey, Mr. Laird Leather Image (Melbourne), placed second in 1993, and Andrew Lennon, Mr. Mephisto Leather (Sydney), placed second in 1998. Bean’s volume documents these milestones among hundreds of photographs and profiles of titleholders, capturing a global leather brotherhood that prominently included Australia from its earliest days. Unrecorded in Australian institutional collections.
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Of Those Alone
Robert Hutton
London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1958.The pseudonymous autobiography of Horace Charles Forbes Cheston, published under the name Robert Hutton shortly after the release of the Wolfenden Report. Written at a time when homosexuality was still criminalised and taboo, Of Those Alone offers an unusually candid account of Cheston’s sexual and emotional life. Moving between Paris, California, New York, and the South of France before returning to England, he recounts his affairs, his ill-fated marriage to an American woman, and his descent into alcoholism, concluding with redemption through Alcoholics Anonymous, an organisation he later helped to establish in Britain. One of the earliest openly homosexual autobiographies of the postwar period, it precedes the more widely known works of the 1960s gay liberation era and is quite likely the first memoir of a gay alcoholic writer.
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Transactor: WATSUP December 93
WATSUP
Perth: WATSUP, 1993.Newsletter of the Western Australian Trans* Support, Unity, Pride. Contains a Presidents Report, A History of Female Impersonation, a copy of the Ministry of Justic, Corrective Services Division Transsexual Assessment and Placement Policy February 1992 issue regarding prison policy on transgender prisoners, membership application/renewal form, and more. Unrecorded in Trove or OCLC. A single copy can be located in the Rikki Swin collection of the Transgender Archives at the University of Victoria, Canada.
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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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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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A New Dictionary of Natural History; or, Compleat Universal Display of Animated Nature. With Accurate Representations of the Most Curious and Beautiful Animals, Elegantly Coloured.
William Frederic Martyn
London: Harrison and Co., 1785.Popular 18th century reference work by William Fordyce Mavor under his Martyn pseudonym, with 100 hand-coloured plates each depicting 4 to 9 animals, insects, or shells.