Songs of Central Australia
Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1971.
Quarto, liv, 775 pages plus a colour frontispiece.
Black binder's cloth with the title and author's name in gilt on the spine and front cover, and with 'A & R' at the foot of the spine; bottom corners a little bumped; very light tidemark to the leading margin of the first 40 leaves (at most about a centimetre deep, but often much less); bookshop inkstamp to the foot of the verso of the title page ('Arunta Book Shop, Todd Street, Alice Springs'); small name-label on the front free endpaper; a very good copy (but essentially unread).
'The first complete account of the poetic heritage of the aboriginal people of Central Australia; an analysis of aboriginal songs as fully-developed oral literature, and their evaluation as authoritative documents of aboriginal religion' (from the original prospectus). Although the original edition comprised 500 copies, this seminal work is utterly rare. A typed note is loosely inserted in this copy: 'Apparently, Kath Strehlow came across several unbound but sewn copies of TGH Strehlow's 1971 "magnum opus". She had these bound and sold them to the Arunta Bookshop in Alice Springs. I bought one of these from Mrs Harvey at the Arunta Bookshop in the mid 1980s. They are not facsimiles but original typescripts [sic], without accompanying maps'. We can amend and augment this note. We have now sold at least five other copies bound in black binder's cloth identical to this item. Two of them were given to two different people on the same occasion by Kathie Strehlow (the author's widow) at her home in suburban Adelaide in the 1980s; another one was originally purchased from Liberty Bookshop in Adelaide in the late 1970s or early 1980s, from a quantity then on sale. Ongoing enquiries lead us to suggest that this binding constitutes a small 'remainder' issue above and beyond the original release of 500 copies. The sheets of all such copies we have handled have had some minor production flaw (such as the light tidemarks to this copy): they appear to incorporate slightly blemished sheets that may have been rejected in the first instance. Circumstantial evidence leads us to believe that Kathie Strehlow did in fact organize the production and distribution of this later issue. The original edition contained a corrigenda slip (tipped in on the sectional title page to the introduction), and a map in an endpocket: this copy was issued without either of them. The map, a detailed four-colour folding map of Aboriginal Central Australia (885 × 685 mm, with an extensive index printed on the verso) was based on information from Strehlow's field note books, 1932-1969. A photocopy (on a series of A4 sheets) of the index to the map is loosely inserted.
Item #133250
Sold