Book Search
If you can find any of the items listed below, you could help us by donating them to the Library or simply letting us know of their whereabouts. By doing so, you are helping to build a national collection for future generations of Australian to use and enjoy.
Please direct all enquiries and offers of materials:
Rosalind McDonaldNational Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
email: rmcdonal@nla.gov.au
phone: 02 6262 1306
Australiana, 1875-1950
The history of publishing in and about Australia is comparatively short - spanning just over 200 years of white settlement and including earlier speculation about the Great South Land and European voyages of discovery. While the National Library has the largest collection of Australian printed material in the world, there are some books which are missing from the collection, and which it would like to acquire and preserve:
- The Honour of the station / Will H. Ogilvie
(London : Holden & Hardingham, 1914)
- Invalid and convalescent cookery: a collection of tried recipes
for the use of Australian nurses / Kate Harriott
(Sydney, NSW : NSW Bookstall, 1912)
- The Saga of Hans Hansen / Oscar Asche
(London : Hurst & Blackett, 1930) - Winning a wife in Australia: a story drawn from actual
experiences and illustrative of life in the present day in the
Antipodes / A. Donnison
(Sydney, NSW : Dymock's Book Arcade, 1894)
Australian sheet music
The Library's collection of printed music is particularly strong in Australian music, with an outstanding collection of nineteenth century materials. A largely comprehensive collection of 20th century music published in or relating to Australia continues to be built.
There are some pieces of 19th and early 20th century sheet music that the National Library does not have in its collection, and would like to acquire:
- Australis, or, The City of zero
- - "an entirely original, musical and spectacular, pantomimic extravaganza of the future" / written and staged for Federation 1900/01, with music by Bernard Espinasse and script by J.C. Williamson
We are currently targeting Australian music, both published and unpublished. For example, in addition to music composed for Federation events we are missing three songs composed in 1932 about the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a song composed by Don Bradman in 1931 with words by Jack Lumsdaine Every day is a rainbow day for me, a 1930s revue by Jack O'Hagan Tout Paree, an opera Gerada and musical play The Toymaker of Nüremberg by Dudley Glass, published 19th century Australian music such as the Seventy seventh galop by Cavallini, and contemporary Australian operas. A regularly updated desiderata list for music is available.
Can you help?
Books by Rosa Praed
Rosa Praed (1851-1935) was a prolific author and 'a most unusual woman'. Born into frontier Queensland at a time when settlers lived in isolation, afraid of Aboriginal attacks, she was to spend her adult life in the literary, artistic and political circles of London. As a young woman, moving in the squattocracy circles of Brisbane, and later in London, as a member of Oscar Wilde's bohemia, Rosa kept notes of the characters and conversations around her. Her forty-five books show evidence of her keen and intelligent observation.
While Rosa Praed's most successful works were set in Australia, her literary subjects were varied, and reflect many aspects of her life - her interest in women's rights; her own unhappy marriage; and, of course, her search for spiritual meaning. On this search she gathered up Aboriginal dreaming, Catholicism, astrology, spiritual mediums, the supernatural and reincarnation - and finally discovered her twin soul.
Rosa's story is a rich and dramatic one, full of psychological interest. The National Library of Australia holds many of Rosa Praed's books (sometimes attributed as Mrs Campbell Praed), but there are a number that it has been unable to obtain, and would like to have:
- As a watch in the night: a drama of waking and dreams in five acts
- (Chatto & Windus, 1901) - Colonial edition
- The Body of his desire: a romance of the soul
- (Cassell, 1912)
- The Brother of the shadow: a mystery of to-day
- (George Routledge & Sons, 1886)
- The Ghost
- (London : Everett, 1903)
- The Insane root: a romance of a strange country
- / by Mrs. Campbell Praed
(London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1902) - The Lost Earl of Ellan: a story of Australian life
- (Chatto & Windus, 1906)
- Mrs Tregaskiss: a novel of Anglo-Australian life
- (Chatto & Windus, 1908)
- "The Right Honourable": a romance of society and politics
- / Justin McCarthy, MP and Mrs Campbell-Praed
(London : Chatto & Windus, 1886) - The Romance of a chalet: a story
- (London : F.V. White & Co., 1892)
- The Romance of the station: an Australian story
- (London, 1889)
- Sister sorrow: a story of Australian life
- (Hutchinson, 1916)
- Some loves and a life: a study of a neurotic woman
- (F.V. White, 1904)
- Stubble before the wind
- (London : J. Long, 1908)
- A Summer wreath
- (London : J. Long, 1909)
Children's books
- Australskem bushi. Upravil a prelozil
- / Stepan von Kotze
(Prague : Ceska Graficka Unie, 1921) - Boys of the world: a journal for prince and peasant
- / Edwin Brett
(London : Edwin J. Brett, 1869-1870) - Dans la brousse Australienne - scenes de chasse
- / P. Maistre
(Paris : J. Hetzel, 1898) - 1st edition - The Parent's assistant, or, Stories for children
- / Maria Edgeworth
(London :printed for J. Johnson, 1796) - 1st edition - Sketches of human manners : delineated in stories intended to illustrate the characters, religion, and singular customs, of the inhabitants of different parts of the world
- / Priscilla Wakefield
(London : [Darton & Harvey], 1807) - 1st edition - Le tour du monde en coquille de noix
- / Eudoxie Dupuis
(Paris : Ch. Delagrave, c. 1890) - The Wayward fern
- / Annina E. Highfield
(Brisbane, QLD : The Read Press Ltd, 1930)
Magazines and journals
Does your home have Australian style? Do you read Elle (Australian edition)? Are your bookshelves bending under the weight of Gardening Australia? The National Library collects these and thousands of other magazines that are published in Australia. The publishers provide them to the Library free of charge under the legal deposit provisions of the Copyright Act, 1968. There are times, however, when issues are missed, lost or damaged and this results in gaps in the Library's collection. With shorter print runs and the passage of time, the Library finds it increasingly difficult to obtain replacement copies of missing issues.
- Australian Aboriginal studies
- (ISSN 0067-1541)
Issues sought: No. 30, 1973 (Australian Aboriginal bark paintings and their mythological interpretation / Helen M. Groger-Wurm) - Australian journal of mining: AJM
- (ISSN 1037-0552)
Issues sought: no. 65 (1992); no. 76 (1993); no. 88 (1994); nos. 100, 106-110 (1995); nos. 112, 114-116 (1996); nos. 122-124 (1996/97); vol. 14, no. 156 (2000) - Australian style
- (ISSN 1322-9559)
Issues sought: nos. 1-4, 8-16, 18-28, 30-43, 46-47 - The Australian way
- (ISSN 0818-9161)
Issues sought: Oct. 1992-June 1993, Mar. 1994, July 1996; Jan., June, Oct., Dec. 1997; Jan., July 1998 - Avstralaziia
- Issues sought: All issues - only an imperfect copy of no. 2, 1934 is held.
- Cricket: a magazine devoted exclusively to cricket
- Issues sought: Vol. 1, nos. 2-3 (1924/25), vol. 1, no. 5+
- Elle
- (Australian edition)
Issues sought: No. 7 (July 1990); no. 51 (May/June 1994); no. 107 (Jan. 1999) - Shares: your guide to Australia's best stocks
- (ISSN 1327-5798)
Issues sought: Dec. 2000 - The Picture: Australia's incredible new weekly
- (ISSN 1033-3258)
Issues sought: Many issues missing - please check catalogue - Table & kitchen
- (ISSN 1321-3679)
Issues sought: Aug./Sept. 1999 - Wise's Western Australia post office directory
- Issues sought: 1938/39; 1948; 1950+
Magazines from overseas that the Library is also interested in are:
- Nigeria
- (Lagos, Nigeria : 1937).
Subtitled "a quarterly magazine of general interest" this magazine was continued by Nigeria magazine which the Library holds with some gaps from 1957 to 1989. The Library is particularly interested in filling in the 1951 to 1957 period. - Royal military panorama, or, Officers' companion
- [London: W. Wilson, c1812-1813]
Issue sought: volume II - Scientific American
- (ISSN 0036-8733)
Issues sought: volume 50 (1884: Jan/Jun) volume 53 (1885: Jul/Dec) volume 55 (1886: Jul/Dec) volume 57 (1887: Jul/Dec) volume 59 (1888: Jul/Dec) volume 63 (1890: Jul/Dec) volume 230 (1974: July/Dec) volume 240: no. 6+ (1979: June+) volume 241: no. 1 & 3 (1979) volume 262: no. 6+ (1990) volume 263: no. 6+ (1990) volume 265: no. 2 (1991: August)
Menus
The National Library collects printed ephemera and is interested menus in the following categories:
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Multicultural materials
Publications produced by multicultural organisations or by individuals from ethnic backgrounds. These publications may be in the ethnic language and may be works of fiction, poetry, prose, recollections or experiences in Australia.
Multicultural/ethnic newspapers, journals and newsletters produced by various organisations.
Publications published overseas, usually in the ethnic language, by persons resident in Australia, or published overseas and about life in Australia.
Overseas books
- Lives of the queens of England from the Norman conquest
- / Agnes Strickland
(London : Bell & Daldy, 1873). New edition, carefully revised and augmented - vol 2
See "Out of the Shadows : the Forgotten Queens of England" by Sylvia Marchant, National Library of Australia News, June 2000, pp.3-6
- Mansfield Park: a novel
- / Jane Austen
(London : T. Egerton, 1814). 1st edition - vols 1 & 3
On the
origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of
favoured races in the struggle for life- / Charles Darwin
(London : J. Murray, 24 November 1859) - 1st edition
Variety obituaries
- (New York : Garland Publishing, 1988-) 15 volume set - volume 14 is needed.

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