Recent Acquisition Highlights

January 1995

This listing gives brief descriptions of some of the more significant items recently added to the National Library's collections. Included, are new items for the Printed, Pictorial, Manuscript, Oral History, Map and Asian Collections.

Printed Materials Collection

  • 19th century silk single sheet programs for events in Brisbane and Sydney between 1860 and 1880, including benefits, inaugurations and galas for the International Exhibition in Sydney.
  • Invitations and menus produced by the Melbourne printing firm of Osboldstone for events such as mayoral occasions, Melbourne Cup dinners, and testimonials between 1916 and 1935.
  • General Tom Thumb's three year's tour around the world (New York, 1872) which includes an account of the visit to Australia by this 'Lilliputian Quartette' of midgets under the auspices of the famous P.T. Barnum.
  • Kookaburra, the laughing jackass and the black snake, 1897 illustrated novelty book for children in the shape of an emu egg by Sydney-based Japanese artist, Jonaski Takuma.
  • Zwischen zwei Feinden=Between two enemies by Franz Pistorius - an adventure story for children published in Germany c. 1870 and set in Van Diemen's Land in the 1860s. Apparently set on board a ship or hulk in the Derwent River, this curiosity has a vividly coloured cover depicting a confrontation between the Captain and an elaborately plumed native with a boomerang in his belt.

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Pictorial Collection

  • Miniature portrait on ivory of Rear Admiral William Bligh by Alexander Huey - believed to have been exhibited at the Royal Academy (London) in 1814.
  • Portrait in oils of the botanist Robert Brown by Henry William Pickersgill.
  • Contemporary portraits of Thea Astley by Anne Clark and David Malouf by Ann Thompson; composer Miriam Hyde by Margaret Brady; a self-portrait by war artist Sybil Craig; the late businessman and founder of Esprit John Bell by Peter Byron; and two figures connected with the legal process in Australia, Ian Barker QC and Lindy Chamberlain by Neville Dawson.
  • Photographic portraits by Greg Weight, Francis Reiss, Heide Smith and Angela Lynkushka.
  • Louis Buvelot watercolour (1873), At Fernshaw. Fernshaw, a forest area near Healesville in Victoria, is still noted for its magnificent ferns, which are a feature of this particular work.

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Manuscript Collection

  • 19th century diaries kept by travellers who spent a few weeks in Australia during voyages around the world: William Bethell, a young Yorkshire landowner who visited Australia in 1871-1872; and an American traveller who used the pen-name Josephus, en-route to England from New York via the Pacific in 1879-1880. Included are descriptions of Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales - including the Sydney Exhibition at the Garden Palace, the first international exhibition held in Australia.
  • Collections of papers of Australian public figures, including the unpublished memoirs of Frank Clarke, a Member of the first House of Representatives; letterbooks of John Monash dating from 1902-1914; papers from the former Labor politician and Federal Minister, Tom Uren, which cover his entire career in politics; and papers of the economist Sir Leslie Melville, who led the Australian delegation at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference.
  • Literary manuscripts and paper, including those of the poet and critic Elizabeth Riddell, poets John Tranter and Anthony Lawrence, children's writer Christobel Mattingley, biographer Patricia Clarke, and historians Robin Gollan and Humphrey McQueen.
  • Musical scores and marked up collections of violinist Ernest Llewellyn; research materials on the history of music publishing assembled by Ken Snell; and the correspondence and other papers of music critic Kenneth Hince.
  • Diaries and letters of Tom Cole describe his life since arrival in Australia in 1923 and his experiences as a station hand, miner, buffalo and crocodile hunter in Queensland, the Northern Territory and New Guinea; papers of Ellis Blain containing some interesting material on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the early days of television in Australia; Stewart Harris, Barry Christophers and Peter Read have each transferred papers relating to the history, values and problems of Australian Aborigines; while the papers of Professor Cecil Gibb which deal with his long career as a psychologist and university administrator, also have some useful material on the working conditions of Aborigines in the Northern Territory in the early 1970s; diaries, letters and other papers of the artist Lorri Whiting and her husband Bertram Whiting provide a fascinating account of their lives in Australia, England and Europe and their wide circle of political, literary, artistic and show business friends; papers of J.N.D. Harrison relating to his work as a policeman in Malaya include two detailed diaries kept while a prisoner at Changi in 1942-1945.

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Oral History Collection

  • Interviews with eminent Australians including Tasmanian environmentalists Jesse Luckman and Bob Brown; journalists Max Suich, Trevor Kennedy, Richard Walsh, Alan Ramsey and Ian Matthews; former diplomats Peter Henderson and Les Johnson; photographer Olive Cotton; writer Barry Oakley; activist Rosemary Gillespie; performers Jeannie Little, Margaret Roadknight, Robert Klippel and Nora Hewson; dance identities Maina Gielgud and Lady Viola Tate; historians Father John Eddy and Father Edmund Campion; writer Donald Horne and poet Anne Edgeworth.

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Map Collection

  • Major Mitchell's Map of the colony of New South Wales (reissued from the original copper plates and published, limited edition) which features roads, tracks and places of interest in the 19 counties of New South Wales in 1834.
  • 1994 Times electronic world map and database containing thousands of interactive maps and statistics has been installed in the Map Reading Room.
  • Rare maps, including: Norton/Kattilby [Western Hemisphere] (1684) which shows the discoveries of Australia and Tasman's second voyage; Bufon's Carte des declinaisons et inclinaisons de L'Aiguille almante(1775); Mappemonde pour servir a l'histoire des decouvertes et conquestes des Portugais dans le Nouveau-monde (1734); and the French Marine's Carte de la Tasmanie et des Terres Environnantes (1847).
  • Current and retrospective topographic maps of South-East Asia, including Indochina, China, Korea and Vietnam; and an extensive collection of early Dutch cartography on microfiche which is based on material in Dutch colonial archives and contains rare atlases from the 16th to 18th centuries and 18th century maps of China, Indonesia and Japan.

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Asian Collection

  • Banthuk Pawattisat saphan mittraphap Thai-Lao, Thai publication on the Australian built Friendship Bridge across the Mekong River which links Thailand and Laos.
  • Works about Australia published in Japan during World War II, including a confidential report on Australia and New Zealand prepared in 1942 by Okinaka Tsuneyuki.

Last updated January 1995

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