[Adelaide]

City of Adelaide. Parks, Gardens, and Children's Playgrounds. Issued by the Corporation, 1928 [cover title]

Adelaide, The Corporation of the City of Adelaide, 1928.

Oblong quarto (220 × 290 mm), [39] captioned full-page plates (printed rectos only).

Cord-bound hole-punched overlapping wrappers a little creased and marked, with trifling loss to silverfish, and a small varnish stain to the front cover; overlapping edges chipped, with some short tears (and one sealed longer one); short sealed tear to the blank bottom margin of the first seven leaves; a very good copy (internally excellent).

Provenance: 'Haddon Bowen 7/8/1928' is written in ink on the inside front cover. 1866 Private Haddon Lancelot Bowen, 50th Battalion AIF, became a prisoner of war during the attack on Noreuil on the Western Front on 2 April 1917, and was interned at Limburg for the duration. He was a clerk nearing 30 when he enlisted in December 1915; a few post-war newspaper references to him suggest he may have been an employee of the Corporation (City Council) when this unusual and uncommon pictorial work was published. The last 12 plates depict playgrounds: the Glover Playground, South Terrace (4); the Glover Playground, North Adelaide (3); the West Terrace Playground (3); and the East Terrace Playground (2). Clearly visible at the entrance to the charming North Adelaide precinct are signs prohibiting both dogs and men.