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Public Fitting
AU$4,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartTim 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
AU$14,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartValentina Pavolvna Wasson; R. Gordon Wasson
New York: Pantheon Books, 1957.The founding work of ethnomycology. One of 512 numbered copies.
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Flagellees: La Flagellation des Femmes dans la Rome Antique
AU$550.00 Read MoreAdd to cartJean 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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Le Panier aux Ordures suivi de Quelques Chansons, Ejusdem Farine
AU$550.00 Read MoreAdd to cart[Armand Gouffe]
Canton [Bruxelles]: W. Field et Tching-Kong [Gay & Douce], No date.Belgian clandestine publication of the erotic poems of Armand Gouffe. The erotic title vignette depicts a young lady lifting her skirt to a priest in a kitchen. This copy from the collection of erotophile Gershon Legman, with bibliographical notes in his hand and signed by him. Legman’s note reads as follows: “[Bruxelles: Gay & Douce 1875] Enfer 29; BM. PC. 1769. 1st ed. as : Le Panier aux ordures, par Armand Gouffe et autres. [Paris – London: John Camden Hotten, for Lord Houghton, 1865.]. 36 f., lg 8vo. Hand-drawn facsimile by H.J. Bellars, erotic drawings by Ulm. No copy.* 2nd ed. (first typographical): [title as here,] [Libreville, a a la Society pour la propagation des livres de l’Enfer’ [Bruxelles: Jules Gay], 1866. vi, 154 p. smal 8vo. (106 copies.) BM.PC. 31 g. 4; Coll. G.L. 1957 G. Legman.” The asterisk from above reads, at bottom of page, “except that of Pierre Louys, coll. Bottin, Nice, in 1962].” Laid in also is a folded piece of typescript from Legman noting “SOLD to RP02/2016” (that is, Richard Press, from his widow) and then the explanation of the woodcut engraving at title page, “probably by Gilbert,” “showing a priest kneeling before a woman holding up her skirts before a kitchen fireplace to show her cunt.” 151 pp. And with occasional pencil marginalia translations into English (mostly of titles).
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International Mr. Leather: 25 Years of Champions
AU$550.00 Read MoreAdd to cartJoseph 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
AU$1,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartRobert 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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Mandatory Masquerade
AU$400.00 Read MoreAdd to cartTrina 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
AU$12,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartS. 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
AU$9,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartCharles 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
AU$4,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartCharles 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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Salome. Drame en un acte.
AU$4,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartOscar 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
AU$5,500.00 Read MoreAdd to cartJ. 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.
AU$5,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartWilliam 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.
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Theatrum Botanicum: The Theater of Plants. Or, An Herball of Large Extent
AU$5,500.00 Read MoreAdd to cartJohn 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
AU$6,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartHumphry 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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Weirdo No. 1
AU$200.00 Read MoreAdd to cartRobert 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
AU$1,250.00 Read MoreAdd to cartRobert 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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The Economic Consequences of the Peace
AU$2,000.00 Read MoreAdd to cartJohn 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
AU$3,250.00 Read MoreAdd to cartMary 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 Civilises
AU$800.00 Read MoreAdd to cartClaude 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.