Item #124101 The Grey River. Mortimer MENPES, Justin McCARTHY, Mrs Campbell PRAED.
The Grey River
The Grey River
The Grey River
The Grey River
The Grey River
The Grey River
The Grey River

The Grey River

London, Seeley and Co., 1889.

Folio, iv, 87 pages plus 12 signed original drypoint etchings (each one tipped in between an unpaginated caption leaf and a blank leaf). The etchings are approximately 150 × 110 mm or the reverse, printed on laid paper measuring approximately 380 × 270 mm, and each one is signed by the artist.

Cream cloth lettered in gilt on the front cover, all edges uncut; covers unevenly discoloured, and slightly stained, bumped and flecked; endpapers offset, with a few tiny tears to the overhanging flyleaves now sealed; minimal foxing and slight signs of use and age; a very good copy (internally excellent, with the etchings essentially in fine condition).

The front flyleaf is inscribed and signed by one of the authors, Rosa Praed, 'To my Friend & Country woman Mrs Langloh Parker. In cordial admiration & regard & with sincere good wishes for the future. R.M. Praed. London. Oct 30th / 05'.

The catalogue raisonné, 'The Etched Works of Mortimer Menpes (1855-1938)', by Gary Morgan (Adelaide, 2012), describes this work as the expatriate artist's 'first major publishing venture, the first of what was to become a major part of his life and a preview to the way he later approached the publication of his later travel books'. The extensive text was by the expatriate author Rosa Campbell Praed (1851-1935), and the Irish politician, historian and writer, Justin McCarthy (1830-1912), a friend with whom she also co-wrote several novels. The book was published at five guineas a copy, in a limited edition of only 230 copies; 30 of them were reserved for presentation, and contain a manuscript limitation statement in ink on the verso of the front flyleaf. Unlike most of the later books, all of the plates in this work are original etchings, individually signed in pencil ('Menpes imp').

Morgan 135 to 146.

Provenance: Catherine Eliza Somerville (Katie) Field (1856-1940), author and 'collector of Aboriginal legends', who married the pastoralist Langloh Parker (1840-1903). 'Bad seasons and the depression of the 1890s forced the Parkers off their station; Langloh died in Sydney in 1903. While visiting London in 1905, Catherine Parker met Percival Randolph Stow (d.1937), a lawyer and son of Randolph Stow [an eminent SA judge]; they married in St Margaret's Church, Westminster, on 7 November. Returning to Adelaide, they lived at Glenelg and took an active part in the cultural and social life of the city' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography'). Accordingly, this book was presented to her by Rosa Praed in London a week before she remarried.

Item #124101

Price (AUD): $3,300.00