Old Melbourne Memories
Melbourne, George Robertson and Co., 1884.
Octavo, 182 pages.
Original pictorial yellow papered boards printed in black and red (the cover design by Samuel Calvert depicts a romanticised fur-clad Aboriginal couple against a backdrop of xanthorrhoea); covers rubbed, a little worn at the extremities and slightly marked; scattered foxing (a little heavier at the beginning and end of the volume); trifling signs of use and age; a very good copy (indeed, an excellent copy of a book in this type of binding).
The scarce first edition, signed on the dedication page 'T.A. Browne. | The Author', we believe to his younger sister Constance. Tipped in on the front flyleaf is an autograph letter signed by Boldrewood (once again as T.A. Browne): small octavo, 2 pages, being the centrespread of a pair of conjugate leaves; 19 October 1904. It is addressed to the editor of 'The Town and Country Journal', Sydney: 'Dear Sir, I commenced my literary career in your paper - as perhaps you may have heard. My daughter, who has inherited "the ready pen" thinks she would like to have her tale, of which the scene is laid in Australia, honoured with a place in your columns. Without paternal partiality, I consider that it is spirited, accurate as to local colour and something above the average as to general merit. I remain faithfully yours, T.A. Browne'. He then lists two titles, 'Squatter's Dream' and 'The Miner's Right', with the added comment '(serials afterwards published in London)', before signing off as '"Rolf Boldrewood"'. An annotation in another hand reads 'MS recd 20/10/04'. The daughter mentioned must be Rose Christiana Angell Browne, author of 'The Complications at Collaroi', a story of station life published in 1911 under the name Rose Boldrewood. Provenance: Constance Cockshott (née Browne), the author's sister. Early inscriptions on the front flyleaf are 'Harriet' and 'With Constance's love' (Harriet is presumably her sister-in law Harriet Cockshott; we suggest the gift inscription came first, and that 'Harriet' is a first-name ownership signature). Two small annotations towards the end of the volume read: 'Hartlands is our place' (page 128, near a reference to the Browne family home in Heidelberg), and 'My favourite. C.C.' (page 179, next to the poem 'Perdita'). 'This was Browne's only book to be first published in Australia. Despite its title, the greater part of the work deals with station life, principally in the Western District. It is stated in the preface that the component articles had appeared originally in "The Australasian"' (Keast Burke: 'Thomas Alexander Browne (Rolf Boldrewood). An Annotated Bibliography, Checklist and Chronology', page 18). Loosely inserted is a later snapshot of the grave of Browne ('died 11th March 1915, aged 89 years') and his wife; the small print (108 × 66 mm) has 'J.K. Moir Negative' stamped on the verso.
Item #125575
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