Adelaide, 'Published by the Authors at the native location' [and printed by Robert Thomas and Co., Hindley Street, Adelaide], 1840. A rare and important early Adelaide publication, and among the earliest and extensive works of its kind; the vocabulary and phraseology run to 76 pages. Ferguson 3102 (with slight variations..... More

London, H. Bailliere, 1842. The plate comes from 'Dr Pritchard's Natural History of Man'. More

London, T. and W. Boone, 1845 (first edition). Provenance: the contemporary signature 'R. Keppel Craven' is written in ink at the head of the first title page (presumably The Honorable Richard Keppel Craven, 1779-1851, British traveller, author, and long-time resident of Naples and Salerno). The blind-stamp of 'The Durdans, Roseberry..... More

London, Hippolyte Bailliere, 1853. Ferguson 9339 (not quite accurate regarding the illustrations, plates and maps): 'Chapter XII [52 pages and the folding plate] deals with Melville Island and North Australia. There are also many references to the Australian aborigines in other parts of the work, with ethnological comparisons'. The list..... More

Sydney, Government Printer, 1857. New South Wales Parliamentary Paper Number 120 of 1857. Seven items of correspondence relating to an incident on the Lower Condamine in 1852 - all pretty inconclusive. More

Melbourne, Government Printer, 1872. Victorian Parliamentary Paper Number 60 of 1872; one of 950 copies. Detailed reports from the Government Aboriginal stations (Coranderrk, Lake Wellington, Lake Tyers, Lake Condah, Framlingham and Lake Hindmarsh) plus appendices listing distribution of stores, prison statistics and the like. More

Adelaide, J.T. Shawyer, Printer, 1874. The frontispiece, a Townsend Duryea photograph, is a composite of five numbered oval portraits; the identification key is printed on the verso of the title page. Ferguson 16706 (not identifying the photographer, and not indicating that the five photographic portraits are in fact one composite..... More

Melbourne, Government Printer, 1875. Victorian Parliamentary Paper Number 26 of 1875; one of 850 copies. Detailed reports from the Government Aboriginal stations (Coranderrk, Lake Wellington, Lake Tyers, Lake Condah, Framlingham and Lake Hindmarsh) plus appendices listing distribution of stores, prison statistics and the like. More

Melbourne, Government Printer, 1877. Victorian Parliamentary Paper Number 62 of 1877; one of 825 copies. Detailed reports from the Government Aboriginal stations (Coranderrk, Lake Wellington, Lake Tyers, Lake Condah, Framlingham and Lake Hindmarsh) plus appendices listing distribution of stores, prison statistics and the like. More

Adelaide, E.S. Wigg & Son, 1878 (second edition, revised). The first edition was published in 1874; it contains only one illustration, the frontispiece. This is an original Townsend Duryea albumen paper photograph, a composite of five numbered oval portraits; the identification key is printed on the verso of the title..... More

Melbourne, John Ferres, Government Printer, 1878. The second volume contains 220 pages devoted to Aboriginal languages. Ferguson 15882 (not noting the binding). Provenance: Freeman Freeman-Thomas, and later, Geoffrey Ingleton, with their respective bookplates on the front pastedowns. Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon (1866-1941), the son of a Governor of..... More

Adelaide, E.S. Wigg and Son, 1879. An early collected reprint of works already scarce at the time; the lithographs and lengthy (34-page) introduction by Woods were new to this edition. Taplin's substantial contribution, The Narrinyeri (156 pages plus 6 preliminaries) is the text of the revised edition of 1878 (see..... More

Melbourne, Government Printer, 1880. Victorian Parliamentary Paper Number 29 of 1880; one of 875 copies. Detailed reports from the Government Aboriginal stations (Coranderrk, Lake Wellington, Lake Tyers, Lake Condah, Framlingham and Lake Hindmarsh) plus appendices listing distribution of stores, prison statistics and the like. More

Adelaide, E. Spiller, Government Printer, 1880/ 1878. First published as a separate pamphlet in 1878, it was reissued in 1879 as an addendum to Taplin's 'The Folklore, Manners, Customs, and Languages of the South Australian Aborigines' and reprinted the following year with reset contents page and variant title page. The..... More

London, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1882. In his time, the author was Commissioner of Police in South Australia. More

Adelaide, Government Printer, 1886. South Australian Parliamentary Paper Number 137 of 1886; only 700 copies printed. All "correspondence, telegrams and minutes relating to the dispensing with the services of Dr Morice as Protector of Aborigines and Health Officer". Morice was sacked for "insubordination, resistence of retrenchment, and litigious disposition"; his..... More

Sydney, RSNSW, 1889. An Australia-wide survey, in which the author pulls no punches. He expresses special indebtedness to the work of E.M. Curr, 'although some of [the latter's] conclusions have been widely different from those enunciated in this essay'. This volume also contains STEPHENS, Edward: The Aborigines of Australia, being..... More

London, RGS, [1889] and [1891]. Lindsay's article gives an account of several expeditions (two of them quite short). On the main expedition, from Dalhousie to the Gulf of Carpentaria between February and October 1886, 'he passed through a large tract of previously unexplored country in the Northern Territory ... a...... More

Adelaide, RGSSA, 1890. Unquestionably rare, and important, with all but one of the numerous articles in this volume relating to North Australia or Australian Aborigines. They are WINNECKE, Charles: Physical Features of Central Australia (8 pages); WORSNOP, Thomas: The Pre-historic Arts of the Aborigines of Australia (25 pages plus 4..... More

Adelaide, Government Printer, 1891. Don't be misled by the generic title! This is the account of a first-hand visit in March-April 1888; it is an interesting and wide-ranging report, covering (among other things) mining, agricultural and pastoral matters, Aboriginal affairs and the local Chinese problem. South Australian Parliamentary Paper Number..... More

Adelaide, RSSA, 1891. The author was a missionary attached to the Finke River Mission (Hermannsburg); 'the vocabulary is that of the tribe inhabiting the River Finke, and is also, with only slight variations in the dialect, that of the tribes in the MacDonnell Ranges eastward to Alice Springs, but not..... More

Adelaide, Government Printer, 1894. With 28 pages on the Aborigines of South Australia and 32 pages on the Northern Territory. More

Adelaide, W.C. Rigby (for the RSSA), 1895. The author was 'formerly Accountant and Paymaster, SA Railways, Port Darwin'. This issue contains another nine articles, including Tepper, J.G.O.: 'New or Little-known Orthoptera from Lake Callabonna'; Howchin, Walter: 'New Facts bearing on the Glacial Features of Hallett's Cove'; and Verco, Dr Joseph..... More

Brisbane, Gordon and Gotch (for the Executrix and Children), 1896. With much on Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and the relevant states; subjects include 'The Lady Augusta', the Constitution, the Anti-Transporation debate, 'The Incursions of the Blacks', Squatting, John Petrie and the Liberty of the Press. More

London, David Nutt, 1896 [first edition]. Andrew Lang, an anthropologist with a special interest in folk tales, correctly notes in his four-page introduction that 'till Mrs Langloh Parker wrote this book, we had but few of the stories which Australian natives tell'. The illustrations, 'from the sketch-book of an untaught..... More