Recent Acquisition Highlights
June 2001
Australian Printed Materials
Four particularly rare recent Australian acquisitions cover the period from the convict era to the World War I. Names and Descriptions of All Male and Female Convicts Arrived in the Colony of New South Wales During the Year 1830 (Sydney: Sydney Gazette Office, 1831) fills a gap in the Librarys holdings of these registers, which cover the years 1830 to 1842. The Library is still missing 1836 and 1840-42. Kooroona: A Tale of South Australia (Oxford: A.R. Mowbray; London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 1871), is a rare first edition of a pastoral romance set in the South Australian squatting districts. The author is not Kathleen Caffyn, who also used the pseudonym Iota, but a mysterious Mrs Meredith. An early collection of religious verse by the much better known poet and novelist Ada Cambridge (1844-1926), Hymns on the Holy Communion (London: Houlston and Wright, 1866), is her second book, published in England before her marriage and emigration to Australia in 1870. The fourth item, Captain John Eldred Motts Experiences and Narrow Escapes of Capt. J.E. Mott (London: Cheswick Press, 1917), describes Captain Motts experiences as a prisoner of war in Germany in 1917 and his subsequent escape. Only two copies of this presentation edition were printed.
Two significant items relating to the botanical history of Australia were purchased. Joachim F. Schouws Pflanzengeographischer Atlas zur Erlauterung von Schouws Grundzugen einer allgemeinen Pflanzengeographie (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1823) includes some of the earliest details on proteas from Australia and is accompanied by a text volume, Grundzuge einer allgemeinen Pflanzengeographie (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1823). Achille Comtes Musee dHistoire Naturelle comprenant La Cosmographie La Geologie La Zoologie La Botanique (Paris: Gustave Havard, 1854), is a French natural history encyclopaedia providing detailed studies of different classes of animal, with marsupials being described in some detail.
A number of additional European imprints depicting Australian animals and bush scenes were purchased. M.A. Koekkoek, Uit in de Australische dierenweld (Holland: J.W. Boerman and K.N. Knip, ca. 1900) is a chromolithograph schoolroom wall-hanging. This item is an excellent example of the way in which the image of the Australian bush was presented to the rest of the world. It depicts kangaroos, cockatoos, an emu and a platypus amidst the grass trees, grevillias and eucalypts of the open forest. M. Breton, Les savants de quinze ans (Paris: Lepetit and Blanchard, 1811) includes an engraving of a kangaroo derived from Stubbs, but takes a considerable amount of artistic license in the addition of five joeys. A. Cordiers Amusing Alphabet: Le Jardin dAcclimation, the Zoological Garden (Paris: H. Plon, c.1870), a fold-out panorama with a zoological theme, depicts a kangaroo with an equally unlikely four offspring. W. Hagelberg, Atlas-manuel zoologique (Paris: chez lediteur, c.1890), is a scarce childrens bird zoology text, which includes a number of Australian species. [Shores Royal Menagerie] Just Arrived and not to be Equalled in the World (Snowhill: Turner, c.1820s) is a printed broadside providing one of the earliest references to a collection of live Australian birds in Europe. Shore lists Cockatoos, Paroquets, Lori and Loricates, (Botany Bay Birds).
Eileen Mayos Sturts Desert Pea (c.1956) and Gert Sellheims Australia (c.1957) are two visually stunning Australian National Travel Association posters that further add to the Librarys collection. Eileen Mayo (1906-1994) was one of only a few women artists to receive a commission from the Association, and was not previously represented in Librarys collection. The Sellheim poster is stylised design forming a boomerang containing Australian images with various Australian animals in the background.
An interesting piece of ephemera added to the Librarys extensive performing arts collections is a silk program for a Royal Opera performance on 26 June 1911 at Covent Garden featuring Dame Nellie Melba. This was a state performance by royal command in honour of the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary.
Manuscripts and Personal Papers
The Library has received a wide variety of manuscript collections and personal papers during the period under review:
- Diaries/journals of: James Downs, whaling voyage to the Pacific, 1853; Reinhold Pohl, German official, visits to Australia and the Pacific 1898-9; Ernst Frohlich, Hay and Tatura Internment camps 1940-1.
- Papers of politicians and public servants : Sam Cohen, Deputy Leader Labour Party in the Senate, 1967-9; Margaret Reynolds, Senator for Queensland, 1983-9; Paul Twomey, adviser to Commonwealth Government and head of the National Office for the Information Economy; Keith Frank, engineer and public servant; Sir James Vernon, Chairman of CSR and Chairman of the 1963-5 Commonwealth Committee of Economic Inquiry; Rupert Lockwood, journalist.
- Papers of community leaders: Reverend Fred McKay, Superintendent of the Australian Inland Mission; Reverend Sir Alan Walker, writer and Superintendent of the Central Methodist Mission, Sydney; Win Olive, peace activist and Joan Kingsley Stack, relating to the treatment and rights of indigenous peoples,1920-40.
- Papers of academics: Geoffrey Blainey, Paul Bourke and Eric Fry, historians; Clare Burton, political scientist and Lindsay Pryor, botanist.
- Papers of writers: Arlene Chai, Bob Ellis, Mudrooroo Nyoongah, novelists and Nicholas Hasluck, novelist and poet.
- Papers of performers: Richard Wherrett, theatre director; Ernest Hoskin and Tamara Tchinarova, dancers and Gordon Gow, dance and film critic.
- Papers of organisations: Constitutional Centenary Foundation; Australian Council of State School Organisations; United Church Frontier Services and the Australian Federation of University Women.
Music
A collection of 76 boxes of unpublished Australian orchestral scores and parts, 1900-1960, has been received from the ABC Federal Music Library.
Pictorial Materials
A large hand-coloured ambrotype portrait was purchased of Robert Hoddle (1794-1881), the early surveyor of Melbourne, and the first Surveyor General of Victoria. Produced in Australia around 1860, this ambrotype is an interesting oval format, full plate sized example of this photographic process, much larger (21.5 x 16.5 cm) than the usual one-ninth plate or carte-de-visite size (6.5 x 10.7 cm).
A group of twenty-five photographs by Roslyn Sharp document the lives of squatters, mainly indigenous Australians, living in a partially constructed apartment building in Kings Cross in the mid-1990s.
A pastel portrait of Emeritus Professor Sir Roy Douglas Wright (1907-1990) by Wes Walters was acquired by donation from Dr Joseph Brown. R.D. (Pansy) Wright was a distinguished Australian physiologist and Vice Chancellor (1972-1980) and Chancellor (1980-89) of the University of Melbourne.
Oral History
Extensive interviews were recorded with distinguished identities in the arts, law science, religion, business and Australian public life. Interviewees included pianist Geoffrey Tozer, playwright Alex Buzo, opera director Moffatt Oxenbauld, ballet director Ross Stretton, gallery director Ray Hughes, federal family court judge, the Hon. Lloyd Waddy, molecular biologist Prof. James Peacock, microbiologist Prof. Frank Fenner, anthropologist Prof. Derek Freeman, Bishop Owen Dowling, winemakers Wolf Blass, and Peter Lehmann, former chief executive of Woolworths (Aust.), Paul Simon, former national secretary of the RSL Ian Gollings, and impresario Kym Bonython.
Maps
Notable map acquisitions during the period under review are:
- Norfolk Island 1:5 000 orthophoto cadastral series. Set of six corrected aerial photograph images issued in large map sheet format in 1991. Limited issue and the most recent and comprehensive mapping of the island.
- Set of 520 1:25 000 topographic mapping of Indonesia part of an ongoing program to acquire the large scale mapping of this country.
- Jean B. DAnvilles Nouvelle atlas de Chine 1785. Rare, 2nd ed. of this atlas showing the provinces of China, Japan and Korea.
- Murray-Darling Basin Commission. River Murray mapping. 2nd ed. 5m colour infrared orthophotos and natural resource mapping data sets of the ten regions for the River Murray Floodplain. 11 CD set. Photography flown 1996. Provides increased aerial coverage, improved accuracy and more up-to-date information on the first edition, which was flown in 1991.
Asian Collections
The National Librarys Indonesian Acquisitions Program, managed through its Regional Office attached to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, celebrates its 30th anniversary in June 2001. Important recent publications acquired through the Regional Office include Questioning Gus Dur (Jakarta: Jakarta Post, 2000); Laws and Regulations on Regional Autonomy (Jakarta: Cyberconsult, 2000); Indonesian sheet maps (over 800 sheet maps for Java, Bali and eastern Indonesia); The Maluku Crisis: Report of the Joint Assessment Mission, Government of the Republic of Indonesia and International Agencies (Jakarta: [s.n], 2000); and Penduduk Indonesia: hasil sensus penduduk 2000 [Population of Indonesia : results of the 2000 census] (Jakarta: Badan Pusat Statistik, 2000).
Materials relating to various aspects of imperial Japan in the first half of the 20th century continue to be of importance. Recent acquisitions include Nihon gaiko bunsho sosakuin [Table of contents and indexes to 57 volume set of Japanese official documents on foreign relations during the Taisho period, 1912-1926] (Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Senta, 1993); Tokyo Saiban kyakka miteishutsu bengogawa shiryo [Sources on the Tokyo War Crimes Trials, 1946-1948] (Tokyo: Kokusho Kankokai, 1995); Osutoraria Kokuritsu Senso Kinenkan shozo Kyu Riku-kaigun shiryo mokuroku = Catalogue of Source Materials of the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy [at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra] (Tokyo: Ryokuin Shobo, 2000); and Manshu ni okeru kyoiku no kisoteki kenkyu [Research on the education of the Japanese and local populations in Manchuria under Japanese control 1931-1945] ( Tokyo: Kashiwashobo, 2000).
Overseas Collections
A substantial part of the private collection of Claude Prance, a book collector and authority on Romantic literature, was recently offered to and purchased by the National Library. It includes a coherent collection on Charles Lamb and his contemporaries, which complements an existing strength of the Libraryits holdings in early nineteenth-century English literature. Lambs circle of associates included Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, Robert Southey, and William Wordsworth. Other highlights from this acquisition include a full set of the London Magazine (distinguished by Lambs contributions), a small number of rare books and material on book collecting, general belles-lettres and books on the theatre.
Two facsimiles have been acquired that represent what are arguably the first and last great masterpieces of the art of the illuminated book. The Book of Kells, recently exhibited in Australia, is one of the earliest and most highly regarded medieval illuminated manuscripts. This product of Irish monasticism contains a Latin text of the four gospels, preceded by prefaces, summaries, and canon tables or concordances of gospel passages. The illuminations are believed to date from approximately AD 800, and are considered to represent the high point of the great flowering of Irish culture between the 7th and 9th centuries. The original Book of Kells has been held by Trinity College Dublin since the mid-17th century.
The Farnese Hours, produced several centuries after the Book of Kells, is Mannerist rather than Medieval, and something of an anachronism from the early era of the printed book. A facsimile of this manuscript, now held by the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, was purchased with the assistance of the Acquisitions Trust Fund. The original Farnese Hours was completed in Rome in 1546 for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1520-1589). The artist is Giulo Clovio (1498-1578), the most famous illuminator of the Italian Renaissance. Vasari, in his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (first published in 1550 and revised and extended in 1568), calls Clovio a "new, if miniature, Michelangelo," and describes this book as a "divine work." Although relatively small in size, the Farnese Hours is generally acknowledged as one of the last great examples of the art of illumination, bringing to a close the tradition represented in the National Librarys rare book collection by a small number of medieval Books of Hours.
The Librarys rare book collection has also been considerably enhanced through the transfer from the Parliamentary Library to the National Library of small but impressive collection of rare books covering politics, law and government from the 16th to the 19th centuries. These books range from a third edition of Sir Thomas Mores Utopia (1518) to works by Niccolo Machiavelli, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Jean Bodin, Sir Walter Raleigh, Francis Bacon, Oliver Cromwell, John Locke, Charles-Louis de Montesquieu, Sir William Blackstone, John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx (the 1887 first English translation of Das Kapital). The National Library previously held many of these books only on microfilm or in modern editions. A special presentation edition of the works of Sir Winston Churchill and a small number of rare Australian items also form part of this acquisition.
