Home > Exhibition labels: World of the Book

Exhibition labels: World of the Book

World of the Book

BOOKS ARE MIRRORS OF MANY WORLDS: WORLDS HERE AND DISTANT, PAST AND PRESENT, REAL AND IMAGINED. THROUGH TEXT AND IMAGE, THEY ARE It CONDUITS OF IDEAS, KNOWLEDGE AND STORIES. 

This exhibition showcases many of the rare, beautiful and historically significant books held in this library on behalf of the Victorian community. It celebrates the unique place of books in our hearts and minds, taking you on a journey through the history of book production, design and illustration, from the ancient past to the present day.

__

Cuneiform tablet

Southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), c. 2050 BCE

RARES 099 C89

Cuneiform writing, developed by the ancient culture of Sumer, was one of the world’s first scripts. It was written on clay tablets using a wedged stick (cunea is Latin for ‘wedge’), and the tablets were then sun dried or fired. The earliest tablets (c. 3400 bce) record economic transactions. This tablet records taxes paid in sheep and goats in the tenth month of the 46th year of Shulgi, second king of the Third Dynasty of Ur.

__

Books and Ideas

The history of ideas is mirrored in the history of the book. Books have altered the course of history itself, disseminating ideas that have changed how we think about the world and ourselves. Across cultures and eras, books have played a highly symbolic and iconic role.

Once, it was thought that the world’s knowledge could be collected between the covers of a book. The information explosion of recent times makes it impossible to contain the world’s knowledge within one library, let alone in one book. Yet books continue to be a powerful means of informing and inspiring new generations.

__

The Birth of Print

The end of one epoch is the beginning of another. An elite society gave way to a mass society.

lucien febvre

Chinese scholars pioneered printing from woodblocks around 200 CE and from moveable ceramic and metal type in the 11th century. German metalworker Johann Gutenberg (c. 1400–1486), who, like all Europeans of his age, knew nothing of these inventions, is considered the founder of European printing.

Within a decade of Gutenberg’s famous 42-line Bible, German printers operated around Europe, including in Rome, Venice and Paris. The earliest printed books reflected the black-letter style of German Gothic script. In the 1470s, Venetian printerssuch as Nicolas Jenson developed typefaces based on Italian humanist scripts (themselves based on Roman scripts), leading to the ‘roman’ typeface still used today.

Books printed before 1500 are known as incunabula, from the Latin for ‘cradle’, referring to printing’s infancy. Manuscript production continued in Europe into the 16th century, but its high cost ensured printing became the pre-eminent technology of the book.

__

Leaves from a Bible, recovered from a later binding

[Paris], France, c. 1150–75

RARESEF 091 L5792

The materials used to make books in the age of the manuscript were too precious to waste. So, when a book fell out of use it would often be cut up and repurposed. Books used in religious rituals were regularly updated, and so they were good candidates for this kind of recycling. These two leaves from the Book of Leviticus (16:15 to 18:26) were cut and used as support for the spine of a later book’s binding. They have been recovered and reassembled in the modern era.

__

St Augustine of Hippo

Augustini opera (The Works of St Augustine)

[Germany], 15th century

RARES 091 AU45

This copy of the collected works of theologian and philosopher St Augustine of Hippo, one of the Church fathers in the Catholic tradition, was written on paper in a type of script known as German littera hybrida, suggesting the possible origin of the book. The survival of the original oak-board and vellum binding, with its metal clasps, is testament to the quality of the craftsmanship and provides historians and conservators with invaluable information about the production of books in this period.

__

‘Pocket’ Bible

France or southern England, 1250–1300

RARES 091 B47C

This small book is an example of the one-volume Bibles made in Paris from the beginning of the 13th century. These portable editions of Christianity’s sacred text were mass-produced for the new and very lucrative university market. Like the other early universities (Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, Salamanca and Padua), Paris’s university grew out of the school formed by master clergymen and their seminarians (students) at the city’s cathedral. These schools were gradually incorporated into guilds (universitas in Latin), teaching theology, arts, law and medicine, which required students to purchase their own copies of foundational texts, such as the Bible.

__

Codex Sancti Paschalis (missal, Franciscan use)

Italy, Perugia, before 1297

Order of Friars Minor, Province of the Holy Spirit, on deposit to State Library Victoria, Rare Books Collection

This missal was probably made for a Franciscan friary in Umbria, within 70 years of the canonisation of St Francis of Assisi (1228). A sturdy, functional book, with the Mass texts lucidly set out, its 37 decorated initials and one historiated initial are the product of commercial Perugian illuminators, while the scribe was a priest, possibly a friar. The missal is named after the Franciscan friary St Paschal in Box Hill, Victoria. The friary acquired it with private donations in 1949 from W.H. Robinson in the final disposal of the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps. It has recently been rebound.

__

Ritual (Liber obsequialis, use of Constance)

Constance, Germany, 15th century

RARESF 096 R66L

Liber obsequialis (Book of Obediences) was one name for the book eventually known as the Ritual, which contained the texts for rites performed by priests that were not included in the breviary or the missal. Each ritual was specific to its town and followed the liturgical customs of the area. This Ritual was used by the Dioceses of Constance in south-western Germany, site of the Council of Constance (1414–18). This council resolved the Papal Schism by dismissing the three competing popes (Gregory vii of Rome, Benedict xii of Avignon and John xxiii of Pisa) and electing Martin V of Rome.

__

The Age of the Manuscript

Before the Romans developed the codex (folded sheets sewn together, bound between boards) in the first century CE, texts were inscribed onto clay tablets and papyrus scrolls. The Romans began using vellum (prepared animal skin) as a writing surface, and their invention of the codex revolutionised the recording and accessing of information.

Until the 12th century, most Western books were hand-copied in the scriptoria (writing rooms) of monasteries, for use by those communities. The rise of universities in towns such as Paris and Bologna in the 13th century created wider demand for book ownership, and the commercial book industry was born.

The 14th and 15th centuries were the high point of manuscript book production in Western Europe. Personal prayer books,in particular, were often lavishly illustrated with miniatures (Latin: miniare, ‘to colour with red’) and gold-leaf illumination. They were prized as much for their beauty as for their spiritual purpose.

__

Albrecht DÜRER

Leaf from Vier Bücher von Menschlicher Proportion (Four Books on the Proportion of Mankind)

Nuremberg, Hieronymus Formschneyder, 1528

RARESEF 093 G

__

Hartmann SCHEDEL

Register des Buchs der Chroniken und Geschichten

Nuremberg, Germany, Anton Koberger, 1493

RARESEF 093 C933K

The ‘Nuremberg Chronicle’, compiled by German humanist scholar Hartmann Schedel, is a history of the world from creation until the late 15th century. The first edition, in Latin, took 19 months to complete and was so popular that a German edition followed within six months. Anton Koberger was the most renowned German printer of the day, with 24 presses in operation and more than 100 craftsmen in his employ. The Chronicle, illustrated by Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, contains in excess of 1800 woodcuts. As the young Albrecht Dürer was apprenticed to Wolgemut’s workshop at the time, it is almost certain that he had a hand in the illustrations.

__

Chiromantia (Chiromancy)

Padua, Matthaeus Cerdonis, 1484

RARES 093 C845C

Chiromancy, or palmistry, is the art of reading the future through the palm of the hand. This brief instructional manual equates the lines and general characteristics of the hand with the sun, moon and planets, and aims to determine the personal characteristics of an individual and their likely future experiences. Printed palmistry books were very popular; titles such as this one, which was first published in Venice in 1480, were reprinted many times.

__

Stephan FRIDOLIN

Schatzbehalter (Book of Treasures)

Nuremberg, Germany, Anton Koberger, 1491

RARESF 093 C913K

This book was written by Franciscan preacher Stephan Fridolin. Its title translates as ‘Treasure chest or shrine of true riches for salvation and eternal blessedness’. It is a compendium of Catholic piety and was published by the greatest early German printer, Anton Koberger. Lavishly illustrated with 96 woodcuts by master craftsman Michael Wohlgemut, teacher of Albrecht Dürer, the text contains instructions on how each image should be coloured. The quality of the colouring can often vary between copies and was dependent on the amount spent by the original owners. This book was purchased for the library through the Felton Bequest, in 1922.

__

The John Emmerson Collection

In 2015, the library received one of the most generous gifts in its history: the John Emmerson Collection.

Born in Melbourne in 1938, John Emmerson has been described by book historian Nicolas Barker as ‘one of the great book collectors of our time’. He completed a PhD in nuclear physics at Oxford University in 1964, and it was there that he began to collect 17th-century English printed works, especially those relating to Charles I and the English Civil War. Returning to Melbourne in 1971, he studied law and became a leading intellectual-property lawyer.

Over the next 40 years, Emmerson amassed 5000 rare titles, including early newspapers and political pamphlets; rare literary editions of Milton, Defoe, Dryden and others; and works relating to Charles I. Emmerson died in August 2014.

The people of Victoria are indebted to John Emmerson for his passion and his generosity, which have so significantly enriched our library.

__

England’s Black Tribunal: Or, The Royal Martyrs.
Being the Characters of King Charles the First, and the Nobility that Suffered for Him

Place and publisher unknown, [1658]

RAREEMM 837/1

John Emmerson Collection

This broadside was produced within the Royalist orbit in the decade following the execution of Charles I, in 1649, and reflects the developing sense of the king as a martyr. Enclosed in a thick, black mourning border, it features a central portrait of Charles above eight lines of verse beginning, ‘Enthron’d in Center of the Planets bright ...’ Surrounding this are 20 portraits of the nobility, each with eight lines of verse: At the bottom of the broadside are a further eight lines of verse ‘On the martyrdom of King Charles I. Written by the Right Honourable the Marquess of Montrose, with the point of his sword on the sands of Leith in Scotland, a.d. 1648’.

__

Peter HELYN

The Historie of that Most Famous Saint and Souldier of Christ Iesus, St. George of Cappadocia …

London, printed for Henry Seyle, and are to be sold at his shop, the signe of the Tygers-head in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1631

RAREEMM 133/20

John Emmerson Collection

Marginalia is the term used to describe past readers’ annotations in books, and it is an area of great interest to modern historians. This example shows a sceptical reader responding in cheeky verse to the story of St George, a fourth-century Greek soldier in the Roman army who became an early Christian martyr. George is best remembered for a medieval legend in which he saved a young princess from a dragon.
The marginalia reads:
St George to save a mayd, a dragon slew
A brave exployte it was, if it be trew.
Som saye there are no dragons, and tis sayd,
There’s no St George, Pray god there be a mayde.

__

Philip SIDNEY

The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia

London, imprinted for Simon Waterson, 1605

RAREEMM 241/4

John Emmerson Collection

As anyone who has ever lived with one will know, cats love walking across a desk or computer while it is in use. This wonderful example of feline marginalia from 1605 bears witness to the long history of this behaviour: a cat has walked through some spilled ink and then across the page of this fourth edition of Philip Sidney’s famous epic poem, which was dedicated to his sister Mary, the Countess of Pembroke.

__

A Dialogue, or, Rather a Parley Betweene Prince Ruperts Dogge Whose Name Is Puddle and Tobies Dog Whose Name Is Pepper

London, I. Smith, [February] 1643

RAREEMM 515/28 John Emmerson Collection

Charles 1’s nephew Prince Rupert was a key leader in the royalist army. Famously, he rode into battles accompanied by his hunting poodle, Boy, who became a target for satirical pamphleteers. In this example, Boy and ‘Tobies dog’ (a reference to the biblical Book of Tobit and the Puritan spirituality of the parliamentarians) trade insults, playing out the political and social differences between the long-haired ‘Cavalier’ royalists and the cropped ‘Roundhead’ parliamentarians. Eventually, Pepper (the ‘Roundhead curr’) is won over by Boy’s forceful personality. He joins the royalists and dons a long-haired wig to complete his transformation: For Tobies Dog doth think it better, To change himselfe to a Cavalier Pepper.

__

Charles STUART

Letter to Elizabeth of Bohemia, his sister

Manuscript, 13 May 1634

RAREEMM 222/20

John Emmerson Collection

Charles 1’s sister Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662) was married to Frederick v of Bohemia, who died after just one winter on the throne, in 1620. For this reason, she is known as the ‘Winter Queen’. Before Frederick died, she and their children (including Prince Rupert) had already fled Prague for the Hague, where she remained throughout the English Civil War, returning to England only after Charles 11’s restoration in 1662. This letter, written by Charles 1 himself (rather than a scribe) in 1634, is evidence of the affectionate relationship between brother and sister.

__

Robert BURTON

The Anatomy of Melancholy …

Oxford, printed for Henry Cripps, 1628

RAREEMM 251/2 John Emmerson Collection

English scholar Robert Burton’s encyclopaedic analysis of melancholy, first published in 1621, is a defining work in the history and philosophy of medicine. ‘Melancholia’ is an ancient concept, similar to but more expansive than modern definitions of depression. Its origins lie in the theory of the four biological liquids (known as ‘humours’) that govern human health: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. Disease was understood as an imbalance of the humours, with an excess of black bile causing melancholy. Burton, who had personal experience of melancholy, treats his subject as a lens through which all humans could be understood, quoting from a wide array of scientific, philosophical and theological sources.

__

John DONNE

Deaths Duell, or, A Consolation to the Soule Against the Dying Life and Liuing Death of the Body …

London, printed by Thomas Harper for Richard Redmer

and Beniamin Fisher, 1632

RAREEMM 321/21

John Emmerson Collection

John Donne’s sermons as Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral were published posthumously. This sermon – reflecting on the preparations required to make a ‘good death’ – was preached to King Charles i and others on 25 February 1631, just one month before Donne’s death and when he was in visible ill health. His biographer, Izaac Walton, relates how Donne posed for a sketch in his funeral shroud, which he then kept by his bedside. Martin Droeshout (famous for his portrait of William Shakespeare) engraved this frontispiece from the sketch.

__

Miguel de CERVANTES

The History of Don Quixote, vol. 1

London, printed for Edward Blount, 1620

RAREEMM 155/13

John Emmerson Collection

Published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, Cervantes’ tale of the delusional ‘man of La Mancha’ is a seminal work in the canon of Western literature. Obsessed with chivalric romances, a Spanish nobleman believes himself to be a knight errant and sets out on numerous quests with his simple, good-hearted servant, Sancho Panza. The tragicomic narrative laments the demise of chivalry, as Don Quixote tilts at windmills, falls in love with a peasant girl he mistakes for a princess and ultimately perishes of a fever, a broken man. This edition is the first full English translation.

__

Ibn MĀJAH

Sunan Ibn Mā jah

India, printed by Matba’ Nizami, India, Jumada

as-Sani sanat 42 [December 1826 – January 1827]

Michael Abbott Collection, State Library Victoria

Ninth-century Persian scholar Ibn Mājah compiled the last of the canonical collections of hadith (sayings of the Prophet) in Islam. This volume is part of the internationally significant Michael Abbott Collection of South-East Asian manuscripts, which was gifted to State Library Victoria in 2012. Comprising 50 volumes (the majority from Indonesia), the collection includes Qur’ans, commentaries, prayers, stories of prophets and other Islamic texts. They are written in a range of languages and scripts, including Arabic, Javanese and Malay, and a number are housed in hand-tooled leather bindings.

__

The Michael Abbott Collection

The internationally significant Michael Abbott Collection of South-East Asian manuscripts was gifted to State Library Victoria in 2012. Comprising 50 manuscripts (the majority from Indonesia), the collection includes Qur’ans, commentaries, prayers, stories of prophets and other Islamic texts. They are written in a range of languages and scripts, including Arabic, Javanese and Malay, and a number are housed in hand-tooled leather bindings.

__

Religions of the Book

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

John 1:1

Many religions are founded on books. The oldest, Hinduism, draws on the Vedas, texts dating back to 1400–1200 BCE. Judaism, Christianity and Islam are often referred to as the ‘religions of the book’, as each has a religious text at its centre: the Torah, the Bible and the Qur’an, respectively. The word Bible derives from biblia, the Greek word for ‘books’. Torah is translated as ‘teaching’ or ‘word’, while Qur’an means ‘to read’ or ‘to recite’.

The rise of new religions has coincided with key moments in the history of the book, such as the development of the codex around the time of the birth of Christianity. Its form assisted the early Church to distinguish itself from Judaism, which used the scroll form for its sacred texts.

__

Two pages from a Kanjur manuscript

Tibet, date unknown

RARE Books Collection

The canon of sacred texts in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition is known as the Kanjur or Kangyur (‘The Translation of the Word’) and the Tanjur or Tengyur (‘Translation of Treatises’). The Kanjur contains the words of the Buddha himself, and the Tanjur contains commentaries and treatises written by others. These undated manuscript pages of the Kanjur come from the Nirvana section, about the final days of the Buddha’s life.

__

Tibetan palm-leaf books

Palm leaves were one of the first writing surfaces used by humans, emerging around the fifth century bce on the Indian Subcontinent and in South-East Asia. The leaves were trimmed, flattened and treated with a preservative mixture (including aconite, or wolfsbane, as an insect repellent). In some cases, the written leaves were bound together down one edge with string or cord. This example is not bound but encased within heavy carved-wood covers. Even after paper became the dominant writing surface in Tibet, books retained the elongated form of palm leaves, as can be seen from the pages displayed above this case.

__

Tibetan samdra message boards

Tibet, 19th century

RARESEF 395.4 SA44

The samdra is a communication device that was used by wealthy Tibetans to transmit messages without the use of paper or pen. The black blank interior boards would be coated with yak butter and a fine dusting of ash, chalk or flour, which was then inscribed using a bamboo stylus. When encased within the decorated covers, the boards are protected; they could be transported to the recipient, who would erase the message and return the boards with a reply. The covers feature an auspicious plant in their design, and with six blank interior slates, or ‘pages’, a message of some substance could be written.

__

The Fivefold Method of Appeasing Transgressions Against One’s Tantric Vows

Mongolia, 18th century

RARESF 091 V72SD

This important Buddhist text was composed in the eighth century by the Indian abbot Vimalamitra. It describes the rituals around the confession of sins and broken tantric vows, both of which hinder the passage of a deceased person’s consciousness towards rebirth. The text was translated from Sanskrit to Tibetan by Nyags Jñānakumara, one of the first Tibetan converts to Buddhism. From the fourth century on, Tibetan missionaries had shaped Buddhist practice in Mongolia; most Mongolian Buddhist texts, such as this one, are written in Tibetan. Just as Tibetans honoured Sanskrit as the language of the gods, so too Mongols held Tibetan in deep admiration.

__

Life of Saint Julian’ from Heiligenleben, Wintereil (Lives of the Saints, Winter Section)

Life of Saint Tiberius’ from Heiligenleben, Wintereil (Lives of the Saints, Winter Section)

Augsburg, Hans Baemler, 1475

RARESEF 093 Sch7

__

John FOXE

The First Volume of the Ecclesiasticall History: Contaynyng the Actes and Monumentes of Thynges Passed in Euery Kynges Tyme in this Realme, Especially in the Church of England ..., vol. 1

London, printed by John Daye, 1570

RARESF 272.6 F831

By the 14th century, religious reformers around Europe were recognising the popular desire for vernacular Bibles. The first complete English translation of the Latin (Vulgate) Bible was produced by John Wycliffe in 1382 and subsequently banned. With the introduction of printing, the groundswell for an English Bible intensified.

__

John FOXE

The First Volume of the Ecclesiasticall History: Contaynyng the Actes and Monumentes of Thynges passed in Euery Kynges Tyme in this Realme, Especially in the Church of England ... vol. 2

London, printed by John Daye, 1570

RARESF 272.6 F831

In 1524, William Tyndale had 18,000 copies of his new English translation printed in Germany. These were immediately banned in Britain and any seized copies destroyed. Tyndale was burned at the stake and only two complete copies of his Bible survive today. He and other Christian martyrs are featured in this popular work by John Foxe.

__

Unknown

Leaf from a Bible with a concordance

Lyon, 1514

RARESEF 093 Sch7

Petrus NATALIBUS

Leaf from the Catalogus sanctorum
(Catalogue of the Saints)

Lyon, 1542

RARESEF 093 Sch7

__

Qur’an

Arabic manuscript, possibly from East or West Africa, c. mid-19th century

RARESEF 297.8 AR

‘Read in the name of thy Lord …’ The first words of the Qur’an symbolise the central role of the book in Islam. Muslims regard the Qur’an as the sacred word of God (Allah), dictated to the Prophet Muhammad by the Archangel Gabriel in the seventh century. Calligraphic art venerated the sacred text; as a result, printed Qur’ans did not appear until the 18th century. This 19th-century manuscript copy was housed in a portable leather satchel.

__

Tunisian Torah finials

Tunisia, c. 1880

Metalwork on wood

Donated by Mrs M. Shafir

Jewish Museum of Australia Collection, 11325.2–3

On loan from the Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne

Early in the diaspora (the movement of Jewish peoples out of their ancestral homeland in modern-day Israel which began in 773 bce), Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews migrated to Africa – mainly to northern parts of the continent , including Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco. This large Torah scroll contains five sacred texts of Judaism, later adopted by Christians as part of their Old Testament. As God’s covenant with the Jewish people, it is the basis for Jewish religious, political and social life. The Torah is always handwritten on parchment made from the skin of a ritually killed animal. It is then placed on a scroll for public reading in the synagogue.

__

Coffret [casket]

Southern Netherlands or France, c. 1480

RARESEF 095 C6549

This ornate wooden box was used for the storage, protection and transportation of precious books, most likely personal prayerbooks. Most coffrets included iron cladding, leather coverings, a cushion nailed to the bottom, loops in the side for a shoulder strap and occasionally a lock with a secret mechanism, or a secret shallow compartment. These boxes opened on the short side and often featured a devotional print, such as a Crucifixion scene, pasted inside the lid, allowing the box to function almost as a portable miniature altar. In this example, the inner lid is decorated with 18th-century wallpaper, indicating its continued use over many centuries.

Coffrets are sometimes depicted in paintings of the period, such as on the shelf behind the prophet Jeremiah in the Aix Annunication (1443–45), attributed to Barthélemy d’Eyck.

__

Books that Changed the World

Some books have altered the course of history; others have profoundly influenced the way we see ourselves. No two people nominating the ten most influential books of all time would present the same list.

Titles likely to appear would be as diverse as the Bible, the Qur’an, Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Mao Zedong’s ‘Little Red Book’, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch.

From philosophy, religion, art and science to politics and the rise of ideologies, books have enabled new ideas to reach broad audiences across the globe. The potency of the printed word is reflected in the fact that throughout history books have regularly been censored, banned and burned. Even in the digital age, books and the ideas within them retain their potential as powerful agents of change.

__

Julius FIRMICUS Maternus

Astronomicorum libri octo integri
(A Work on Astronomy in Eight Books)

Venice, Aldus Manutius, Romanus, 1499

RARES 093 C995A

Written around 336 ce, the Roman Firmicus’s text is the most comprehensive astrological work to have survived from ancient times. It outlines the influences solar movements were believed to have on human behaviour and includes detailed instruction on the interpretation of horoscopes. In this deluxe printed edition, produced by Aldus Manutius (famous for inventing italic type and popularising small-format books), Firmicus’s text is accompanied by woodcuts of the constellations.

__

Johannes de Sacro BOSCO

Sphaera mundi (The Sphere of the World)

Venice, Johannes Lucilius Santritter and Hieronymus de Sanctis, 1488

RARES 093 SA149S (1488)

Donated by Jan McDonald, 2021

Johannes Bosco was a scholar, monk and astronomer. His Sphaera mundi is an important medieval astronomical text, based on the then newly available works of the ancient Greek scholar Ptolemy, which survived in Arabic translations. Though it concerns astronomy, its preliminary chapter includes a clear description of the Earth as a sphere. It is considered one of the most influential works of pre-Copernican astronomy in Europe, providing a link between ancient Greek thought, Arabic scholarship and later Renaissance ideas. This edition is one of the earliest European examples of colour printing.

__

Johannes de Sacro BOSCO

Sphaera mundi (The Sphere of the World)

Venice, Girolamo Scotto, 1620

RARES 522 S14

Johannes Bosco’s Sphaera mundi was required reading by students for more than 400 years after it was first written, as this 17th-century edition demonstrates.

__

Wooden printing block for 製歷象考 (Yuzhi Lixiang Kaocheng, Compendium of Calendrical Science and Astronomy Compiled by Imperial Order)

China, 18th century

RARESEF 686.20951 Y9C

This wooden block was used to print folio 117 from chapter three of a compendium of astronomical knowledge compiled during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (1654–1722), the greatest of the Qing dynasty. It was first printed in 1723, and the edition printed from this block dates to somewhere near that year. These pages include illustrations of eclipses, a subject of extreme importance to Chinese emperors. Their mandate from heaven compelled them to seek the best advice available for the calculation of the calendar and the prediction of eclipses, so that their knowledge would be seen to proceed directly from heaven.

__

Johannes HEVELIUS

Selenographia (The Study of the Moon’s Surface)

Gdansk, Poland, printed by Andreas Hünefeld, 1647

RARESF 523.3H48

Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius was the founder of selenography, or lunar cartography; he was the first to depict the moon realistically, with craters and plains. As well as building his own observatory, he ground his own lenses and made his own telescopes. Hevelius also drew and engraved all the illustrations in this book. Tragically, his observatory, containing all his instruments, burned down in 1679, an incident from which he never really recovered. This display shows a volvelle, a moveable circular astronomical chart used to make calculations.

__

Laura BASSI

De problemate quodam mechanico (On a certain problem of mechanics) From De Bononiensi scientiarum et artium instituto atque academia

Bologna, Typis Lælii a Vule Instituti Scientarum Typographi, [1757]

RARES 505 B63C (1757)

Acquired by the Women Writers Fund, 2022

A contemporary of the French mathematical physicist, Émilie du Châtelet, Laura Bassi is recognised as an emblematic female scientist of her generation. A university graduate, salaried professor and academician, Bassi may well have been the first woman to have embarked upon a full-fledged scientific career.

__

Sir Isaac NEWTON

Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy)

London, Jussu Societatis Regiae ac Typis Josephi Streater, 1687

RARES 531 N481 P

Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia forms the basis of our modern understanding of dynamics. It is considered one of the most important single works in the history of modern science. In the Principia, Newton formulated the three laws of motion and the theory of universal gravitation. These laws enabled him to explain a range of phenomena, including the motion of planets, moons and comets within the solar system, the behaviour of the Earth’s tides, the precession of the equinoxes and the irregularities in the moon’s orbit. The Principia established Newton, at the age of 45, as one of the greatest scientists in history.

__

Émilie du CHÂTELET

Principes mathématiques de la Philosophie naturelle (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), vol. 1

Paris, 1740

RARES 531 N481C (1759)

Acquired by the Women Writers Fund, with support from the Helen Macpherson-Smith Trust, 2022

Du Châtelet was a remarkable woman, a mathematician and natural philosopher whose ideas were championed by other leading figures of the French Enlightenment, including Voltaire and Diderot. Her most recognised achievement is her translation of and commentary on Isaac Newton’s 1687 book, Principia mathematica, containing laws of physics that held sway until Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity in the early 20th century. The translation, published posthumously in two volumes in 1756, is still considered the standard French translation today.

__

Émilie du CHÂTELET

Principes mathématiques de la Philosophie naturelle (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), vol. 2

Paris, 1740

RARES 531 N481C (1759)

Acquired by the Women Writers Fund, with support from the Helen Macpherson-Smith Trust, 2022

__

Émilie du CHÂTELET

Institutions de Physique (Foundations of Physics)

Paris, 1740

RARES 530 D856I (1740)

Acquired by the Women Writers Fund, with support from Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM, 2022

The French natural philosopher and mathematician Émilie du Châtelet was active during the early 1730s until her death from childbirth complications in 1749. She published only a few works, including this introduction to physics based on her lessons to her 13-year-old son. Recognition of du Châtelet’s contribution to science waned at the end of the 18th century, and her reputation as a philosopher was overshadowed by her relationship with Voltaire. Openly acknowledging du Châtalet’s influence on his thought, Voltaire believed she was equal or superior to many men, saying she ‘was a great man whose only fault was being a woman’.

__

Antonio Francesco FRISI

Elogio storico di Dottoressa Maria Gaetana Agnesi Milanese dell’ Accademic dell’Instituto delle Scienze, e lettrice onoraria di matematiche nella Universita’ di Bologna (Historical Praise for Dr Maria Gaetan Agnesi from Milan, of the Academia of Science and Honorary Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Bologna)

Milan, Guiseppe Galeazzi, 1799

RARES 510.92 Ag62F

Acquired by the Women Writers Fund, 2022

This is a first edition of the first biography of Italian mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi (1718–1799), written by her friend Antonio Frisi and published in the year of her death. Agnesi was one of 21 children from a wealthy merchant family, who quickly distinguished herself as a prodigy in natural philosophy and mathematics. Her Instituzioni analitiche ad uso della gioventu’ Italiana (1748) is believed to be the first book of advanced mathematics published by a woman. Pope Benedict XIV awarded Agnesi the chair of mathematics and analytical geometry in 1750, making her the second woman ever to be made a professor by a university.

__

Literary Milestones

Throughout history, unique literary works have been created that transcend the place and culture of their origin. Such works speak across language and time, coming to be recognised as universal in their themes.

The earliest narratives were recounted orally, and only later recorded in written form. Epics such as Gilgamesh, Beowulf, the Mahabharata and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey retain a hold on our imaginations thousands of years after their creation. We continue to marvel at how Shakespeare, writing 400 years ago, could know our hearts so well.

The great narratives, such as those by Chaucer, Dante and Milton, will be reinterpreted and retold by each new generation. They will be refashioned in mediums that did not exist at the time of their creation. In this way, they will entrance and inspire our descendants, just as they have the generations past.

__

Books and Imagination

Books hold the world’s stories, from the earliest known myths and legends to postmodern fictions. They are also keys that unlock inner worlds. The greatest authors and texts act as literary milestones, signposts marking the collective journeys of the imagination.

Imagination begins in childhood. Our earliest experience of reading allows us to travel to new worlds, to inhabit the voices and lives of characters. As adults, we never lose this sense of discovery, this capacity to journey to other places and times through books. At a fundamental level, books allow us to imagine ourselves as other than who we are.

__

Mary Wollstonecraft SHELLEY

Frankenstein

Cambremer, France, SP Books – Éditions des Saints Père, [2018]

RARESF 823.7 SH4F

Acquisition supported by the Women Writers Fund

In the summer of 1816, Mary Shelley (then Godwin), Percy Bysshe Shelley and Claire Clairmont spent time with John William Polidori and Lord Byron at the ‘Villa Diodati’, at Lake Geneva. On a stormy night, Polidori suggested a competition between them to establish the best writer of a ghost story. Consuming Mary Shelley’s waking hours and pervading her dreams, her short story evolved into two large manuscript notebooks, written over a nine-month period. The manuscripts include copious annotations, corrections and commentary by her lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley. In 1818, these manuscripts were anonymously published in three volumes.

__

Mary Wollstonecraft SHELLEY

Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus

London, Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1832

RARES 823.7 SH4F (1832)

Acquisition supported by the Women Writers Fund

First published anonymously in 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus is considered the first true science-fiction novel and a masterpiece of Gothic and Romantic literature. The third edition (on display) includes the first illustrative representation of Victor Frankenstein’s ‘monster’ and includes an additional chapter, in which Shelley describes the genesis of the novel. Substantially revised and corrected by Shelley herself, this was the third and final edition to be published during Mary Shelley’s lifetime. It is the edition still most widely read today.

__

Mary Wollstonecraft SHELLEY

Author

Lynd WARD

Illustrator

Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus

New York, Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1934

RARES 823.7 SH4F (1934)

Often portrayed in a grotesque and dehumanising manner, Frankenstein’s monster has become a character to be reviled rather than pitied. American author and master engraver Lynd Ward disrupts this modern rendering, expertly illustrating Frankenstein’s monster as a product of human arrogance. Ward’s expertly executed woodcuts evoke compassion in the reader, a departure from the abhorrence commonly associated with modern illustrations of the character.

__

Mary Wollstonecraft SHELLEY

Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus: The Standard 1831 Text

Lakewood, Colorado, Millipede Press, 2007

RARES 823.7 SH4F (2007)

Two hundred years after the first edition, Shelley’s Frankenstein continues to have a profound influence on popular culture. A testament to its longevity is evident in the number of films, television shows, stage plays, music and comics that the work has influenced. The most recognisable of the adaptations are Boris Karloff’s (William Henry Pratt’s) portrayal of the monster in James Whale’s films Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Rowland V. Lee’s Son of Frankenstein (1939).

__

Spiritualism

In mid-19th-century New York, a new religious movement known as Spiritualism developed within Christian communities. It was a response to the rationalist Enlightenment philosophy of the 18th century, which denied life after death and all other articles of blind faith.

Through seances and mediums, Spiritualists sought connection with the ‘spirit world’ they believed existed alongside the mortal plane. Some branches, such as Theosophy, also drew explicitly on ideas from ancient religions and philosophies in Greece, Egypt and India. A broad movement rather than a specific set of beliefs, Spiritualism was at its peak globally between the 1840s and 1920s, though a resurgence of interest in communication with the dead followed both world wars.

In Australia, as elsewhere, the emotional and intellectual stimulus of spirit communication engendered a powerful creative response. This display explores the place of Spiritualism and esoteric beliefs in the creative lives of artist Christian Waller and authors Henry Handel Richardson and Joan Lindsay.

__

Christian WALLER

Standing Christ, two studies for mosaics

Female head study in profile, looking up

Pencil drawings, c. 1920–54

H93.150/15, H93.150/16

Christian Waller was a muralist and stained-glass artist, as well as a printmaker, illustrator and highly skilled draughtswoman.

__

Christian WALLER

The Great Breath: A Book of Seven Designs

Melbourne, Golden Arrow Press, 1932

RARELTEF 769 W15

Castlemaine artist Christian Waller was a Theosophist, ascribing to a set of religious beliefs first formulated in New York in 1875 by Russian Madame Blavatsky and Americans Henry Olcott and William Quan Judge. Theosophy (meaning ‘divine wisdom’) is a mixture of ancient Greek philosophy, ancient Egyptian religion, Hinduism and Buddhism. While it has no strict dogma, adherents share belief in the ‘Universal Brotherhood of Humanity’, rejecting ideas of race, caste and sex, and in a secretive order of ‘Masters’, who preserve ancient divine wisdom and guide human evolution. Waller’s The Great Breath depicts in linocut ‘a symbolic rendering of the impulse behind an individual Root Race of the present world cycle’.

__

Henry Handel Richardson’s typewriter

Realia, c. 1930

Gift of Clive Probyn, 2009

H2010.34

This early manual typewriter, issued under the trade name Varityper, was owned and used by Henry Handel Richardson. These typewriters, made in the United States and available in England, where Australian-born Richardson lived, were produced from 1926 into the 1930s. Richardson probably acquired this machine in the early 1930s, relatively late in her career. She used it until her death, in 1946.

__

Walter Lindesay RICHARDSON

The Olympus Mysteries and Druids’ Key

Carlton, Vic., W. Richardson, 1912

RAREMCP 299.16 R39O

Walter Lindesay Richardson, the father of author Henry Handel Richardson (born Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson), was a respected obstetrician in Melbourne and Ballarat. He and his wife were leading members of the burgeoning Spiritualist movement, which had already swept through the United Kingdom, Europe and America. In 1869, Walter Richardson became the first president of the Victorian Association of Progressive Spiritualists, the social and political ideas of which chimed well with his own. His religious beliefs and his mental and physical ill health (possibly dementia or syphilis) greatly influenced his daughter’s writing, especially in developing the flawed character of Richard Mahony.

__

Henry Handel RICHARDSON

The Getting of Wisdom

New York, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1931

RARELT A823.2 R394G (1931/1)

Between 1883 and 1887, Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson attended the Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Melbourne, where she excelled academically and in music performance and composition; in 1888, she moved to Europe to pursue her musical studies. Her experience at the private girls’ school is said to have had a major influence on her writing The Getting of Wisdom. First published in 1910, while Richardson was living in London, this coming-of-age novel details the experiences of a young girl confined to the rigidity of an all-girls boarding school at the turn of the century.

__

Henry Handel RICHARDSON

Ultima Thule

New York, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1929

RARELT A823.2 R394U

Published as a trilogy in 1930, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony comprises three originally separate novels: Australia Felix (1917), The Way Home (1925) and Ultima Thule (1929). The trilogy chronicles the life and decline of an Australian physician and his family during the 19th-century gold mining boom in Ballarat. The titular character is said to be modelled closely on the author’s memories of her father, Walter, and the narrative confronts issues of mental health and economic hardship. ‘Thule’ was an ancient Greek name given to the most northerly location on their maps; ‘Ultima Thule’ refers to a place beyond the known borders of the world, as indeed Australia appeared.

__

Joan LINDSAY

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Melbourne, F.W. Cheshire, 1967

RARELT A823.3 L645P

Joan Lindsay’s most famous creation, written in four weeks at her home ‘Mulberry Hill’, was inspired by a dream and by Henry James’ eerie story of haunted children, The Turn of the Screw (1898). She named the book after William Ford’s painting of picnicking Victorian girls, At the Hanging Rock (1875), which she knew well from the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, where her husband, Daryl, was director from 1942 to 1956. An expression of white Australia’s fear of the bush (and, by extension, Indigenous people), the novel has been criticised in recent years for its focus on fictional white loss in a region haunted by real Indigenous trauma.

__

William FORD

At the Hanging Rock 1875

Reproduction of an original oil on canvas

79.2 x 117.5 cm

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Purchased, 1950 (2255-4)

__

Gainsborough Studios

Photographers

Marion Wanliss, Leslie Henderson and Joan Weigall (Lady Lindsay)

Gelatin silver postcard, 1914

H89.267

Born into an affluent family in East St Kilda, Melbourne, Joan à Beckett Weigall (1896–1984) graduated as the dux of her class at the Clyde Girls’ Grammar School around the time this photograph was taken. In 1919, the school relocated to Macedon, near Hanging Rock. After studying at the National Gallery School under Bernard Hall and Frederick McCubbin, she moved to London, where she married Australian artist Ernest Daryl Lindsay in 1922. On returning to Australia, Joan à Beckett Lindsay put aside art and focused on writing.

__

Max LANGE

Author

Ernst FALKBEER

Translator

Paul Morphy: A Sketch from the Chess World

London, J.H. Starie, 1860

RARESEF 794.1 R897J

Like many of his generation, English art critic and author John Ruskin (1819–1900) was a passionate chess player. England was the centre of the chess world in the 19th century, holding the first international tournament in 1851, alongside the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. In 2020, the library acquired Ruskin’s own chess set and this heavily annotated collection of games played by his contemporary, American chess master Paul Morphy, compiled and translated by Lange and Falkbeer, also chess masters. Ruskin’s annotations include characteristically forthright opinions, such as ‘Entirely stupid!’

__

Unknown maker

Chess set owned by John Ruskin

Ivory pieces, wooden box, 1800s

RARESEF 794.1 R897J

Today, the most common colours for chess pieces are black and white, but this has not always been the case. Various related games played with yellow, green, red and black pieces have been identified in different cultures across the centuries. In Europe, it was not until the 18th century that white and black pieces began to overtake the more common red and black combination, in part because of the expense involved in obtaining white wood or ivory. In the Victorian era, white and red sets, like the one Ruskin owned, were common, as can be seen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-glass and What Alice Found There (1872).

__

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson known as Lewis CARROLL

Author

John TENNIEL

Artist

Through the Looking-glass and What Alice Found There

London, Macmillan and Co., 1872

RAREJ 823.8 C23T

Donated by Graham and Anita Anderson, 2016

In the sequel to Lewis Carroll’s highly popular 1866 book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the intrepid Alice ventures through a mirror and finds herself in a life-size chess game, populated by animated chess pieces governed by the fierce Red Queen and ineffectual White Queen. Taking part in the game as a white pawn, Alice navigates the mirror-world and its backwards logic, ultimately being crowned as a queen, the most powerful piece in the game, before awakening from her dream. This edition includes John Tenniel’s iconic wood-engraved illustrations.

__

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson known as Lewis CARROLL

Author

John TENNIEL

Artist

Through the Looking-glass and What Alice Found There

London, Macmillan and Co., 1933

RAREJ 823.8 C23T (1933)

Ursula Hoff Bequest

John Ruskin and Charles Dodgson were both part of the Oxford University elite, and both were connected to Henry Liddell, the rector of Christchurch College, where Dodgson was a mathematics professor. Liddell’s daughter Alice was the inspiration for Dodgson’s two classic Alice books, while Ruskin taught art to Alice and her sisters, who were schooled at home. Carroll parodied this in Wonderland, describing the ‘old conger-eel’ who taught them ‘Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils’ (drawing, sketching and painting in oils).

__

The Cuala Press

The Dun Emer Press was founded in 1903 by Elizabeth Corbet Yeats, sister of the poet William Butler Yeats. It became the Cuala Press in 1908 and continued to publish books until 1946, six years after the death of its founder.

Using an Albion hand press, Yeats trained local Irish girls to work with her in publishing books. The creative genius of the Yeats family and the indomitable will of Elizabeth carried the Cuala Press though financial difficulties, political troubles, a civil war and two world wars. She published 77 books, including first editions by W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge, Oliver Gogarty, Elizabeth Bowen, Patrick Kavanagh and Frank O’Connor.

As can be seen from Elizabeth Yeat’s letter to Albert Broadbent Foxcroft (the librarian who built this world-class rare books collection in the 1920s and 1930s), State Library Victoria has an extensive collection of Cuala Press editions.

__

W.B. (William Butler) YEATS

Author

John Butler Yeats, a watercolour drawing by himself’, from Reveries Over Childhood and Youth

Mrs Yeats, a watercolour drawing by J.B. Yeats’, from Reveries Over Childhood and Youth

Churchtown, Cuala Press, 1915

RARES 928.21 Y34R

__

Jack Butler YEATS

Artist

W.B. (William Butler) YEATS

Author

Memory Harbour’, from Reveries Over Childhood and Youth

Churchtown, Cuala Press, 1915

RARES 928.21 Y34R

__

W.B. (William Butler) YEATS

Discoveries: A Volume of Essays

Dundrum, Dun Emer Press, 1907

RARES 824.8 Y34D

Poetry and Ireland

Churchtown, Dundrum, Cuala Press, 1908

RARES 821.91209 Y3P

__

John Butler YEATS

Early Memories: Some Chapters of Autobiography

Churchtown, Dundrum, Cuala Press, 1923

RARES 927.5 Y3E

Oliver GOGARTY

Wild Apples

Dublin, Ireland, Cuala Press, 1930

RARES 821.91 G55W

__

Elizabeth Corbet YEATS

Elizabeth Corbet Yeats’ photographic album

Dublin, Ireland, 1903–38

Exhibition print from digital archive

From Trinity College Dublin

This photograph shows the printing room at Dun Emer in 1904. Elizabeth Corbett Yeats is seated on the left, Beatrice Cassidy is in the centre and Esther Ryan stands to their right.

__

Elizabeth Corbet YEATS

Letter from Elizabeth C. Yeats to an unidentified male

Manuscript, 1933

MS 13020

__

W.B. (William Butler) YEATS

Four Years

Churchtown, Dundrum, Cuala Press, 1921

RARES 927.5 Y3F

Reveries Over Childhood and Youth

Churchtown, Ireland, Cuala Press, 1915

RARES 928.21 Y34R

__

W.B. (William Butler) YEATS

Essays

Dundrum, Cuala Press, 1937

RARES 824.89 Y34E

John MASEFIELD

Some Memories of W.B. Yeats

Dublin, Cuala Press, 1940

RARES 928.21 Y34M

__

Women Beat Poets

Originating in the 1950s, the Beat Generation was an American literary movement that rejected the traditional form and content of literary narratives. Famous Beat authors included Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac.

Although often underrepresented in literary history, women Beat poets and feminist poetry were integral to the founding and development of the Beat movement, which gained momentum in the 1960s. San Francisco independent bookstore and publisher City Lights was at the epicentre of the Beat movement, and women such as Diane di Prima, Anne Waldman, Denise Levertov and Janine Pommy Vega were all published by the iconic bookstore.

The 1960s and 1970s was the age of the civil rights movement, and second-wave feminism was a vital part of this social history story. Women wrote on issues such as reproductive rights and pay inequity, concerns that remain unresolved to this day. Although gender was at the core of feminist poetry, for some writers black civil rights was also prominent.

__

Hettie COHEN

Editor

Amiri BARAKA

Editor

Yūgen, Nº.s 1–8

New York, L. Jones and H. Cohen, 1958–62

RARES 811.54 Y908B

__

Denise LEVERTOV

Here and Now

San Francisco, City Lights Pocket Bookshop, 1957

RARES 811.54 L57H

__

Janine POMMY VEGA

Poems to Fernando

San Francisco, City Lights Books, 1968

RARES 811.54 P772P

__

Diane di PRIMA

Revolutionary Letters, Etc.

San Francisco, City Lights Books, 1971

RARES 811.54 D62R

__

Anne WALDMAN

Fast Speaking Woman & Other Chants

San Francisco, City Lights Books, 1975

RARES 811.54 W14F

__

Barbara GUEST

The Blue Stairs

New York, Corinth Books, 1969

RARES 811.54 G938B

__

AI

Cruelty: Poems

Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1973

RARES 811 Ai1

__

Najīb Maḥfūẓ

In spite of all what goes on around us I am committed to optimism until the end … Good is achieving victory every day. It may even be that Evil is weaker than we imagine … were it not for the fact that victory is always on the side of Good, hordes of wandering humans would not have been able … to form nations, to excel in creativeness and invention, to conquer outer space, and to declare Human Rights.

Najīb Maḥfūẓ Acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1988

Egyptian novelist Najīb Maḥfūẓ (or Naguib Mahfouz; 1911-2006), became the first Arab Nobel Laureate when he was awarded the prize in 1988, achieving global prominence.

In the West, he is best known for The Cairo Trilogy, which follows three generations of the Abd al-Jawad family, from 1917 to the end of World War II. Exploring the life and culture of Cairo’s old city, Mahfūz’s characters are developed against the backdrop of Egypt’s struggle for independence from British rule.

__

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

Roger ALLEN

Translator

Autumn Quail

Cairo, Egypt, American University in Cairo Press, c. 1985

RAREGAA 892.736 M27SA (1985)

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

Kristin Walker HENRY

Translator

Nariman Khales Naili AL-WARRAKI

Translator

The Beggar

New York, Doubleday, 1990

RAREGAA 892.736 M27SH

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

__

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

Rasheed EL-ELNANY

Translator

Respected Sir

London and New York, Quartet Books, 1986

RAREGAA 892.736 M27R (1989 printing)

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

Fatma MOUSSA-MAHMOUD

Translator

Miramar

Washington, DC, Three Continents Press, c. 1990

RAREGAA 892.736 M27MM

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

__

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

William Maynard HUTCHINS

Translator

Olive E. KENNY

Translator

Palace Walk

New York, Doubleday, 1990

RAREGAA 892.736 M27BH

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

William Maynard HUTCHINS

Lorne M. KENNY

Translator

Olive E. KENNY

Translator

Palace of Desire

New York, Doubleday, c. 1991

RAREGAA 892.736 M27QH (1991)

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

__

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

William Maynard HUTCHINS

Translator

Angele Botros SAMAAN

Translator

Sugar Street

New York, Doubleday, 1992

RAREGAA 892.736 M27SHU

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

__

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

Tagreid ABU-HASSABO

Translator

Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth

New York, Anchor Books, 2000

RAREGAA 892.736 M27AFA

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

Denys JOHNSON-DAVIES

Translator

Echoes of an Autobiography

New York, Doubleday, 1997

RAREGAA 892.736 M27MJ

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

__

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

Catherine COBHAM

The Harafish

New York, Doubleday, 1994

RAREGAA 892.736 M27HC

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Author

Peter THEROUX

Translator

Children of the Alley

New York, Doubleday, 1996

RAREGAA 892.736 M27AT

Graham and Anita Anderson Collection

__

Faber by Design

Founded in 1929 by Geoffrey Faber, Faber & Faber is one of the last great independent publishers in the United Kingdom. Poetry has always been a prime element of its list, especially after T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) became the publisher’s literary adviser in the late 1920s. Berthold Wolpe (1905–1989) designed more than 1500 covers for Faber & Faber between 1941 and 1975. A typographer by training, Wolpe oversaw many of the designs displayed here. Faber & Faber covers, renowned for their striking typefaces, bold colours and geometric designs, contributed to the transformation of the once-ephemeral book cover into an enduring artistic medium.

__

Penguin

Penguin Books, founded by brothers Allen, Richard and John Lane, celebrated its 85th anniversary in 2020. Throughout its history, it has been known for its innovative use of design to produce distinct identities for its various series, such as its colour-coded paperbacks. The Great Ideas series focuses on non-fiction titles that changed the world. Designers David Pearson, Phil Baines, Catherine Dixon and Alistair Hall collaborated to produce a series of book designs that would break the mould of the traditional Penguin aesthetic.

__

Tove Jansson and the Moomins

You must go on a long journey before you can really find out how wonderful home is.

snufkin, comet in moominland, 1951

Tove Jansson (1914–2001) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish visual artist, illustrator and author, best known for creating the family of Moomin characters (‘Mumintroll’ in Swedish).

The Moomins are the central figures in a series of novels, picture books and comic strips for children. Jansson wrote and illustrated The Moomins and the Great Flood (1945) as a distraction from the devastation of World War II. Her last work in the Moomin series was published in 1970.

The stories follow the adventures of Moomintroll, a white, round, fantastical creature with a large snout, giving it a hippoesque appearance. The charming and carefree troll family from Moominvalley live in harmony with nature, welcoming visitors from farther afield. Jansson’s stories tap into universal themes of kindness, bravery, loneliness and uncertainty, and they are beloved by adults and children alike.

__

Tove JANSSON

The Exploits of Moominpappa

Helsinki, Moomin Shop, 2022

RARE Books Collection

__

Tove JANSSON

Mumintrollet, Nº. 2

[Stockholm], lmqvist & Wiksell / Gebers Förlag AB, 1957

RAREJ 839.737 J26MT (2)

The Moomin stories centre on Moomintroll, the child of Moominmama and Moominpapa. Together with his friends, including Snuffkin, Mymble, Little My and Snorkmaiden, Moomintroll goes on exciting adventures in the forests, caves and seas of Moominvalley. Mysterious creatures such as the Hattifatteners, Hemulens and The Groke pepper their journeys, though bravery and resourcefulness always see the friends return safely home.

__

Tove JANSSON

Mumintrollet, Nº. 3

[Stockholm], Gebers, 1958

RAREJ 839.737 J26MT (3)

Mumintrollet, Nº. 5

[Stockholm], Gebers, 1960

RAREJ 839.737 J26MT (5)

Mumintrollet, Nº. 6

[Stockholm], Gebers, 1962

RAREJ 839.737 J26MT (6)

__

Tove JANSSON

‘Snuffkin’
‘Sniff’
‘Moomintroll and Little My’
‘Snorkmaiden’

Advertising labels

Helsinki, Kromipaino, 1956

Private collection

__

Unknown maker

Moominpapa figurine

Finland, c. 1958

RAREJF 839.737 J26M

Tove Jansson’s thoughtful and intrepid Moominpapa is the central figure in several of her Moomin books, including The Exploits of Moominpappa (1952) and Moominpapa at Sea (1966). His philosophical musings include, ‘I had now found my first friend, and so my life was truly begun’ and ‘the world is full of great and wonderful things for those who are ready for them’.

__

L’assessor Ltd

Manufacturer

Tie patterned with Tove Jansson’s Moomintroll characters

Realia, c. 1998

H2019.306

__

Tove JANSSON

Moomin

London, Wingate, 1957

RAREJF 839.737 J26M

Tove Jansson’s first comic strip appeared in 1947. In 1954, London newspaper The Evening Standard began publishing a daily Moomin cartoon. The humorous cartoon continued until 1959, when Jansson’s brother Lars took over. An established author and illustrator, Lars continued to produce the Moomin cartoon until 1975. The popularity of the Moomin stories have seen the comics reproduced in 40 countries and adaptations made for television series and films. There are also two Moomin theme parks, one in Finland and the other in Japan.

__

Illustrating Trauma

‘Refugee comics’ tackle the complexity of migration through illustration. With themes such as economic and forced migration through conflict, the graphic novel has the power to transcend borders and language to convey migrant experiences.

Graphic novels, comics and zines provide a platform for authors and illustrators to tell stories of human experience. Many works on the subjects of refugees and migration are produced by Western authors and illustrators. Initiatives such as the Refugee Art Project empower artists who have lived through these experiences to produce their own works. Safdar Ahmed has taken the do-it-yourself ethos of zine-making to people incarcerated at the Villawood detention centre to enable them to tell their own stories. Many participants chose to protect their identities in fear that their claim for refugee status would be denied on the basis of their art.

__

Julie SHIELS

Artist

Mason LINDSAY

Artist

Marilyn MEDDENBACH

Artist

We Were All Migrants Once

Victoria, Red Letter Press, 1990

PCPOSTER 108

__

Shaun TAN

The Arrival, and Sketches from a Nameless Land

Sydney, Hachette Australia, 2010

RAREJEF A823.3 T1537AS (Collector’s edn)

Shaun Tan’s award-winning book The Arrival, first published in 2006, explores a theme common to much of his work – the universal idea of belonging, which also lies at the heart of the migrant experience. Cast as a wordless graphic novel, this tale of a stranger in a strange land drew inspiration from many sources: the sepia tones found in old family photos, the visual language of film, photographs of migrant processing at Ellis Island, New York, in the early 1900s, as well as stories of his own family’s migration experience.

__

Morten DÜRR

Author

Lars HORNEMAN

Illustrator

Zenobia

New York, Triangle Square, 2018

AF 741.5973 D937Z

__

Eoin COLFER

Andrew DONKIN

Authors

Chris DICKEY

Letterer

Giovanni RIGANO

Illustrator

Illegal

Naperville, Illinois, Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, [2018]

A 741.59415 C68I

Graphic novels based on the testimonies and experiences of forced migrants and refugees are often illustrated and authored by Western artists and authors. Colfer’s Illegal continues this tradition, drawing upon his own experience working with undocumented migrants to produce a provocative and powerful work, intimate graphic memoirs that evoke compassion through illustration.

__

Safdar AHMED

Compiler

Refugee Art Project Zine

[NSW], Refugee Art Project, 2013

RARESF Zines Collection

The Refugee Art Project was founded in 2011 by Sydney-based artist and scholar Safdar Ahmed. The initiative captured the lived experience of refugees incarcerated in the Villawood Detention Centre. The project offered refugees a platform for agency, sharing their personal stories through art and literature.

__

Pulp Fiction

The 1950s was a golden era for Australian pulp fiction. Import restrictions on American books and magazines in the 1940s and 1950s created an opportunity for local publishers to meet the growing demand for American-style commercial novels.

Sydney publishers such as Horwitz and Cleveland led the way, developing stables of writers capable of producing books to order, with strikingly designed covers. The ever-popular Larry Kent series ran to more than 400 titles, while Alan Yates, writing under the pseudonym Carter Brown, issued some 300 crime novels in the 30 years between 1954 and 1984. The stories were predominantly set on the mean streets of America.

With the arrival of television and the lifting of import restrictions, in 1959, the demand for locally produced pulp fiction declined. The next generation of ‘gumshoes’ – characters such as Cliff Hardy and Phryne Fisher – plied their trade in distinctly local settings, a sign of Australia’s growing cultural confidence.

__

Exploring The World

Books reflect our desire to know the world: to see it, classify it and make sense of it. They have always both documented the past and recorded the new. From scientific discoveries to journeys to new lands, books enable the sharing of novel ideas and information.

Before the age of air travel and mass media, books were crucial in making the world accessible to many. Books now share this space with the internet. Because of their physicality – their ability to be held and owned, and to bring together word and image – books continue to be central to our lives.

__

Ancient Egypt and its Audiences

This display marks the centenary of the discovery and excavation of the boy-king Tutankhamun’s tomb by English archaeologist Howard Carter. It offers a critical perspective on the longstanding European obsession with ancient Egypt and explores modern Egyptian political and literary responses to colonialism and to Egypt’s relationship with its past.

For more than 5000 years, the fertile ground around the river Nile has sustained the rich culture of Egypt, with its fascinating burial culture involving mummification and pyramids, and its striking visual aesthetic. For thousands of years, too, strategically situated and wealthy Egypt has battled for its independence during occupations by Nubia, Libya, Greece, Rome, the Ottoman Empire and, more recently, France and Britain.

Palestinian-American literature professor Edward Said identified France’s 1798 invasion of Egypt as a key moment in the history ‘orientalism’, the West’s depiction of Eastern cultures as undeveloped, static and inferior. It was, he wrote, ‘the very model of a truly scientific appropriation of one culture by another apparently stronger one’ (Orientalism, 1977).

__

Athanasius KIRCHER

Oedipus Aegyptiaci … (Egyptian Oedipus …), vol. 1

Romae, Ex typographia Vitalis Mascardi, 1652

RARESF 913.32 K63

German Jesuit priest and polymath scholar Athanasius Kircher was fascinated by the past. He wrote scientific studies of volcanoes and fossils, and he claimed – like Oedipus answering the Sphinx’s riddle – to have decoded the hieroglyphs. Although his translations were inaccurate and based on the erroneous idea that hieroglyphs were abstract occult symbols rather than signs for specific words, he correctly identified the phonetic nature of the glyphs. His work was dismissed by the scientific rationalists of 18th-century Enlightenment, but today he is regarded by many as the founder of Egyptology – the study of ancient Egypt.

__

Athanasius KIRCHER

Oedipus Aegyptiaci … (Egyptian Oedipus …), vol. 3

Romae, Ex typographia Vitalis Mascardi, 1653

RARESF 913.32 K63

One of the most famous aspects of ancient Egypt is its burial culture. Mummification – preserving bodies – has been practised by cultures on every continent. In Egypt, it evolved from ‘natural’ mummification (bodies drying out when buried in the desert sands) into a highly specialised religious ritual of evisceration, embalming and wrapping. The Egyptians believed that in the afterlife an individual would need all the trappings of their earthly existence, including their body. Wealthy individuals were mummified, placed in sarcophagi with elaborate decorations and buried in tombs with their possessions (often including their slaves). Pyramids were constructed to mark royal tombs.

__

The Rosetta Stone: A Facsimile Drawing

London, published for the Trustees of the British Museum

by British Museum Publications, 1988

Exhibition print from SF 493.1 R72Q

No object speaks more eloquently of the political element of Egyptology than the Rosetta Stone. A stele (upright carved stone) inscribed with a decree about King Ptolemy V (reigned 204–181 bce), it displays the same text in three scripts and languages: Ancient Greek, Demotic and hieroglyphics.

In 1799, the French Emperor Napoleon’s troops discovered this stone as part of an ancient wall and immediately realised its importance regarding the decipherment of hieroglyphics. After the French surrendered to the Ottomans and the British in 1801, the Rosetta Stone was taken to England, where it remains in the British Museum. Many would describe it as looted.

__

Jean-François CHAMPOLLION

Grammaire Egyptienne … (Egyptian Grammar …)

Paris, Firmin Didot Frères, 1836

RARESF 493.1 C35G

The last hieroglyph (a Greek term meaning ‘sacred writing’) was carved in Egypt in 394 ce, and in the centuries that followed, knowledge of how to read this language was lost. In the early 19th century, stimulated by Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt (1798–1801), Frenchman Jean-François Champollion and Englishman Thomas Young raced to be the first to crack the hieroglyphic code. The key, with which Champollion triumphed, was the Rosetta Stone, discovered by French soldiers in 1799. It bore a decree of Ptolemy V from 196 bce inscribed in three languages: hieroglyphs, Demotic (another Egyptian script) and Ancient Greek.

__

Jean-François CHAMPOLLION

Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens égyptiens … (Summary of the System of Hieroglyphics of the Ancient Egyptians …)

Paris, Imprimerie royale, 1827–28

RARES 493.1 C35P

The second edition of Champollion’s guide to deciphering the hieroglyphs includes this fold-out lithographic plate illustrating the visual relationship between Ancient Greek, Demotic (everyday language of Egypt) and hieroglyphs, which were a sacred script. The survival into modern times of Coptic – used by Christianity in Egypt – assisted Champollion, as it is the direct descendent of Demotic. Ancient Greek, too, had survived to the 19th century, and together, these two very early languages unlocked the hieroglyphs and the mysteries of ancient Egypt.

__

Thomas YOUNG

Account of Some Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature

London, John Murray, 1823

RARES 493.1 Y8

English polymath Thomas Young achieved acclaim in a range of fields, from optics to music theory, but is today best known for his fierce rivalry with Jean-François Champollion over decoding ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Young, working from the Rosetta Stone and other sources, had made great advances in deciphering Demotic Egyptian script but failed to realise that his insight – that Demotic employed both ideographic (symbols representing concepts) and phonetic (symbols representing sounds) signs – also applied to hieroglyphs. Young’s reputation was eclipsed by Champollion’s success, but today Egyptologists celebrate both men for their significant contributions.

__

J.G.-H. GREPPO

Author

Isaac William STUART

Translator

Essay on the Hieroglyphic System of M. Champollion, Jun. and on the Advantages which It Offers to Sacred Criticism

Boston, Perkins & Marvin, 1830

RARES 493.1 G86ES

This volume is the first English translation of Champollion’s system for reading ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is significant that it was published not in England (home to his rival, Thomas Young) but in the United States of America. In 1788, France became the America’s first international ally, in the midst of its violent struggle for independence from Great Britain during the American Wars of Independence (1775–83). Global politics is never far from the study of ancient Egypt.

__

Owen JONES

‘Egyptian No.4’ and ‘Egyptian No.1’ from The Grammar of Ornament

London, Day and Son, 1856

RARESEF 745 J72

Architect Owen Jones was one of the most significant design theorists of the 19th century. His masterpiece, The Grammar of Ornament, intended as a resource for designers in the Victorian era, reflected Jones’ belief that modern design could learn important lessons from the past. The book, which sought to reveal the universal design principles that lay behind all historical ornament, comprised 112 chromolithographic plates illustrating the styles of 19 cultural periods, including ancient Egypt.

__

Giovanni Battista BELZONI

Narrative of the Operations and Recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia

London, J. Murray, 1820

RARESF 913.32 B41

Ever since the French invasion of Egypt in 1798, Europeans have been looting and purchasing antiquities from Egypt. Born in Padua, Giovanni Belzoni studied hydraulics before moving to England in 1803. Belzoni travelled to Egypt in 1812 to propose a hydraulic scheme for the Nile to the pasha Mehmet Ali. His proposal was not adopted, but the British consul-general, Henry Salt, engaged Belzoni to remove the colossal bust of Rameses II from Thebes to the British Museum. Belzoni also cleared the Temple of Abu Simbel of sand and was the first to enter the second pyramid at Giza.

__

Samuel SHARPE

Author

Joseph BONOMI the YOUNGER

Artist

The Alabaster Sarcophagus of Oimenepthah I: King of Egypt, Now in Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields

London, 1864

RARESF 913.32 Sh2

Neoclassical architect Sir John Soane (1753–1837) was a passionate collector of antiquities. A key exhibit at his extraordinary house museum is an alabaster sarcophagus for Oimenepthah I, better known as Seti I (1323–1279 bce), the father of Rameses 11 (‘the Great’). Discovered by Giovanni Belzoni in Thebes in 1817, it was purchased by Soane who held a three-day party upon its arrival. When a lamp is placed inside it, the intricate hieroglyphic inscriptions on the sarcophagu’s translucent walls are illuminated. This book of the inscriptions was illustrated by Soane’s curator, Joseph Bonomi the Younger, and dedicated to Belzoni.

__

Amulets and a piece of a pyramid collected by Frank Shaw in 1916

Stone [limestone], Egyptian faience

MS 16125

Like many of his fellow soldiers, Australian Frank Shaw sent his family souvenirs of his time in Egypt during World War 1. While some items now in Australia and elsewhere were undoubtedly looted, others were purchased from shops catering to the tourist market, a practice extending back some 2000 years to the Roman occupation of Egypt. Amulets – small figurines of gods or symbols that are worn as pendants to ward off bad fortune – have always been popular in this context, as inexpensive, evocative, portable pieces of an ancient culture. Some of those Frank sent home in an Egyptian tobacco tin are ancient but others were produced more recently.
In the accompanying note to his father, Frank wrote:

These are a few curios which I thought might interest you, as they were got from the tombs, and of the two small irregular pieces of stone… the largest is a piece of King Cheops Pyramid, the smallest I picked up inside the same pyramid. I am explaining my visit to thePyramid in a letter.

Though it is clear he picked up the pieces of rock himself, it is unclear whether he purchased or took the amulets.

__

An Egyptian photographer at the Sphinx and pyramids

Four Australian soldiers on camels in front of the pyramids

Postcards, c. 1914–18

H99.166/73 and H99.166/74

Egypt was a key strategic site for British and Commonwealth forces during World War I (1914–18), largely because of the Suez Canal. Constructed by the Egyptian government during the 1860s, it connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and it remains a vital shipping route. In 1882, the British invaded Egypt and for the next 75 years exercised both unofficial and official control over it, including a period of formal occupation from 1914 to 1922. Australian and New Zealand soldiers were stationed in Egypt throughout World War I, with many sending home postcards such as these to their families.

__

Unknown photographer

Three Egyptian women protesting in the 1919 revolution

Exhibition print from digital file

Women played a prominent and influential part in the 1919 uprising against British colonial rule, led by Huda Sha’rawi and other feminists. However, they were sidelined by the nationalist Wafd party, which took control in 1922. Sha’rawi’s rejection of the hijab has its echoes in the actions of Egyptian women in the 2011 Tahrir Square demonstrations, and the protests rocking Iran in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini for supposed violation of the strict dress code.

__

Charles Daniel PRATT

Photographer

Photographs of Egypt and Palestine

Album of photographic prints, 1914–18

H2012.62/1–48

Gift of the Estate of Charles Daniel Pratt, 1972

The British formally occupied Egypt from 1914 until February 1922, when King Fuad I took power. His reign was precipitated by a popular revolution in 1919, when Egyptians from all parts of society rebelled against British colonialism, in no small part due to dissatisfaction over Egypt being drawn into World War I. Street demonstrations brought Cairo to a standstill; the British and their Commonwealth troops, including the Australian Light Horse responded with violence, killing at least 800 and wounding 1600. New Zealand pilot Charles Pratt documented this period, though no photos of the demonstrations are found within this album.

__

Huda SHA’RAWI

Author

Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (1879–1924)

London, Virago Press, 1986

S 305.420962 Sh2S

Activist, nationalist, suffragette and founder of the Egyptian Feminist Union, Huda Sha’rawi played a vital role in encouraging the large female presence in the 1919 revolution against British – and male – rule. Born into an upper-class family and highly educated, Sha’rawi rebelled against the secluded life expected of women, and organised academic classes for women that drew them into public intellectual life for the first time. After the death of her husband, in 1922, she ceased wearing the hijab, inspiring many women to do the same. Her memoir was translated, edited and published in 1986 by Margot Badran at Virago, bringing her activism to international attention.

__

Sirdar Ikbal Ali SHAH

Fuad, King of Egypt

London, H. Jenkins, 1936

S 923.162 F95I

Fuad I was descended from Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman sultan who ejected Napoleon and his troops from Egypt in 1801. The Muhammad Ali Dynasty, as it was known, ruled Egypt for much of the 19th century, until the British invaded in 1882. Though Egypt remained nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, the British exerted increasing control in the lead up to its occupation (1914–22). The violent uprising of 1919 eventually led to Fuad I’s declaration of Egyptian independence on 28 February 1922, just nine months before the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. The British would remain a presence in Egypt until 1956, when General Gamel Abdel Nasser became president.

__

Gamel Abdel NASSAR

Egypt’s Liberation: The Philosophy of the Revolution Falsafat al-thawnah [Arabic and English editions]

Cairo, Information Department, 1960

P 962.05 N18P2 and P 962.05 N18PI

The 1950s were a turbulent decade in Egypt. In 1952, a revolution overthrew King Farouk, the son of Fuad I, and in 1953, the Egyptian republic was declared under President Mohamed Naguib, supported by General Gamel Abdel Nasser. In 1954, Nasser staged a coup against Naguib and became Egypt’s prime minister (its second president from 1956). He nationalised the Suez Canal Company, taking control of the key waterway from France and Britain. His successful navigation of the 1956 Suez Crisis and ejection of the British saw his popularity soar in Egypt and the pan-Arabic world. His political career ended after Egyptian defeat in the Six Day War with Israel in 1967.

__

Tawfiq AL-HAKIM

Journal d’un substitute de campagne (Diary of a Country Prosecutor)

Cairo, La Revue du Caire, 1939

RARES 892.78 H1278J

A pioneering author of modern Arabic literature and theatre, Tawfiq Al-Hakim was born in Alexandria. After studying in Cairo, he worked on a PhD in Paris, but, inspired by the French theatrical scene, returned early to Cairo intent on invigorating Egyptian drama. From the 1930s to 1950s, he was a leading figure in Egypt’s literary scene, often using historical settings to critique his present, including General Nasser and what he saw as the unfulfilled promise of the 1952 revolution. Al-Hakim’s 1932 novel, Journal d’un substitute de campagne, influenced by his father’s life as a regional judge, was translated into many European languages.

__

Tawfiq AL-HAKIM

The Return of the Spirit

London, Penguin Classics, 2019

RARE Books Collection

Written while Tawfiq Al-Hakim was a student in Paris and published in 1933 after his return to Cairo, The Return of the Spirit is one of his most loved novels. Set in 1919, it tells of Mohsen, a teenage student living in Cairo with his three unmarried uncles and aunt. Against the backdrop of the 1919 revolution against British rule, Mohsen falls in love for the first time; both character and country are coming of age. With a deft hand, Al-Hakim blends comedy and tragedy, painting a rich and vivid period of the birth of modern, independent Egypt. This Penguin Classics edition was published on the 100th anniversary of the revolution. __

Najīb MAḤFŪẒ

Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth

Egypt, Dar Al Shourouk, 2006

RARE Books Collection

Egyptian writer Najīb Mahfūz (Naguib Mahfouz) was the first Arabic author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature; a selection of his key works is displayed elsewhere in this exhibition. Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth (1985) is an historical novel about the controversial pharaoh Akhenaten (reigned c. 1351/53 to c. 1334/36 bce), who was Tutankhamun’s father. Akhenaten abandoned Egypt’s tradition of polytheism and enforced worship of a single deity, the Aten, or sun disc, and moved the capital from Thebes to his new city of Amarna. After his father’s death, Tutankhamun – originally named Tutankhaten – reversed these changes. Mahfūz, like Tawfiq Al-Hakim and others before him, was inspired by Egypt’s rich history and turbulent politics.

__

Roland UNGER

Photographer

The funerary mask of Tutankhamun in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, 2016

Exhibition print from digital file

Of all the astonishing things found by Howard Carter and his colleagues in Tutankhamun’s undisturbed tomb, his mask remains the most iconic. Made of high-karat gold and inlaid with lapis lazuli, obsidian, quartz, carnelian, amazonite, turquoise and faience, it depicts the young pharaoh in the guise of Osiris, god of the afterlife, and was intended to ensure Tutankhamun’s reign in the Kingdom of the Dead. A protective spell in hieroglyphs adorns the back and shoulders. Some Egyptologists have argued that the mask was repurposed from that of a queen, along with other objects in Tutankhamun’s tomb, but debate continues.

__

Howard CARTER

Author

Harry BURTON

Photographer

The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen: Discovered by the Late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter, vol. 1

London, Cassell and Company, 1927–30

RARES 932.014 C2451

The discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb by English archaeologist Howard Carter in November 1922 has had extraordinary ramifications, both within Egypt and outside it – an impact far outweighing the brief reign of the young pharaoh in 1323–22 bce. Carter, funded by aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, had been excavating ancient Egyptian sites since 1907, with no major success. Carnarvon agreed to fund one last season, and when an Egyptian water carrier stumbled over a nearly buried step in the Valley of the Kings, Carter and his unheralded team of Egyptian excavators unearthed the tomb of the ‘boy king’ Tutankhamun.

__

Howard CARTER

Author

Harry BURTON

Photographer

The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen: Discovered by the Late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter, vol. 3

London, Cassell and Company, 1927–30

RARES 932.014 C2451

It took more than ten years for Carter and his many assistants to document the treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb, as shown in a famous series of photographs by Harry Burton, from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met). Most of the tomb’s objects went to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but it has recently been revealed that despite denials at the time, Carter did steal objects for himself. He was not alone; many items from the tomb have appeared on the antiquities market. In 2010, the Met recognised Egypt’s title over 19 Tutankhamun items in its collection.

__

Howard CARTER

Author

Harry BURTON

Photographer

The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen: Discovered by the Late Earl of Carnarvon and Howard Carter, vol. 2

London, Cassell and Company, 1927–30

RARES 932.014 C2451

On 23 November 1922, Lord Carnarvon and his daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, waited as Howard Carter peered by candlelight through a gap he had chiselled in the door of Tutankhamun’s tomb. ‘Can you see anything?’, Carnarvon asked. ‘Yes, wonderful things!’, replied Carter. Or so the story goes, written down by Carter some years later. There were indeed wonderful things inside: Tutankhamun’s tomb had largely escaped tomb robbers over the centuries, so all his burial goods lay undisturbed. Here, the god of the dead, Anubis, guards the door of the tomb. He could not protect it from the modern fascination with ancient Egypt.

__

Saleh LUFTI

Author

Ḥamzah ʻABD ULLĀH KĀR

Artist

Views of the Tomb of King Tut-Ankh-Amen at Thebes, Discovered by Mr. Howard Carter on Behalf of Lord Carnarvon

Cairo, 1923

RAREP 726.80962 H18V

For most of the past 100 years, the story of the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb has focused on two Englishmen, Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter. But their discovery was only possible due to the labour of a team of Egyptian excavators, many of whom were experts in their craft. This bilingual Arabic–English pamphlet by Saleh Lufti, printed in Cairo in 1923, is an insight into the reception of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Egyptians at the time. Hamzah ‘Abd Ullāh Kār’s drawings of objects found in the tomb probably offered, to many local people, the first detailed glimpses of their national treasure.

__

Saleh LUFTI

Author

Ḥamzah ʻABD ULLĀH KĀR

Artist

Foreword to Views of the Tomb of King Tut-Ankh-Amen at Thebes, Discovered by Mr. Howard Carter on Behalf of Lord Carnarvon

Cairo, 1923

Exhibition print from RAREP 726.80962 H18V

In the foreword to his pamphlet, Saleh Lufti explains the brief reign of Tutankhamun. The last paragraph is crucial for understanding the major impact this pharaoh had on modern Egypt. Lufti notes that the discovery coincides with the ‘happy moment’ that King Fuad I ‘returned to power’. Great Britain had interfered with Egyptian politics and governance since buying shares in the Suez Canal Company in 1875 and had occupied it militarily since 1882. In 1919 there was a revolution against British rule, and on 28 February 1922, Great Britain recognised Egypt’s independence under Fuad I.

__

Advertisements for Palmolive soap from The Ladies Home Journal

Des Moines, Iowa, USA, Meredith Corporation, 1919 and 1920

Private collection

With headlines such as ‘the cosmetics of Cleopatra’ and ‘the oldest of toilet requisites’, the Palmolive Company tapped into the vogue for all things Egyptian in the Western world, launching its eponymous soap in 1898. Combining the allure of an ivory-skinned Cleopatra (famous for bathing in asses’ milk) and the glamour of Art Deco fashion, these advertisements are redolent of the aesthetic of the 1920s.

__

William SHAKESPEARE

Antony and Cleopatra, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies [i.e., the second folio]

London, printed by Thomas Cotes for Robert Allot et al., 1632

RARESF 822.33 A2

First performed in 1607, Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra tells the tragedy of the doomed love between the Roman general Mark Antony and the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Based on the work of Roman historian Plutarch, the action takes place in the first century ce, when Egypt was under the rule of the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty and Rome was governed by Mark Antony and his fellow ‘triumvirs’, Lepidus and Octavius. The romance between Cleopatra and Mark Antony has dire consequences for both. Many have described Cleopatra as Shakespeare’s most complex and developed female character.

__

May MOORE

Photographer

Four photographs of Lily Brayton as Cleopatra

Gelatin silver photographs, c. 1910–13

H38782/99, H38782/102, H38782/103, H38782/104

In 1913, English actress Lily Brayton (1876–1953) starred as Cleopatra in a production of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra at the Theatre Royal on Bourke Street, Melbourne, with Oscar Asche as Antony. Born in Lancashire, Brayton was renowned for her Shakespearean performances, and these beautiful photographs by New Zealand–born May Moore capture something of her allure as the seductive, doomed Egyptian queen. Moore specialised in theatrical portraits.

__

Arnold VAN GENNEP

Le tissage aux cartons et son utilisation décorative dans l’Egypte ancienne (Tablet Weaving and its Decorative Use in Ancient Egypt)

Neuchâtel, Delachaux et Niestlé, 1916

RARESF 744.09021 G287T

Ever since Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, Europeans had been fascinated by the aesthetic of Egyptian design, with its rich palette of colours and use of geometric patterns. This accelerated rapidly after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, but even before that, works such as Owen Jones’ The Grammar of Ornament (1856) and this book about textile design by French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep catered to a public eager for visual information about ancient (and to a lesser extent, modern) Egypt.

__

Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts)

Paris, 1925

RAREP 607.344436 EX76V

Since the first international exhibition in England in 1851, fairs to showcase the best of arts, craft and industry had been a regular fixture in Europe, the United States and Australia. In 1925, Paris hosted an international exhibition that has been credited with formalising the style known as Art Deco, shortened from the French phrase ‘Arts Décoratifs’, which was influenced in part by the magnificent treasures found in Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. Using bold geometric patterns and expensive materials such as gold, ebony and ivory, Art Deco represented the luxurious, glamorous ideal of the interwar years.

__

Agatha CHRISTIE

Death on the Nile

Great Britain, Fontana/Collins, 1975

Private collection

The great English detective novelist Agatha Christie was no stranger to the distant past: her second husband, Max Mallowan, was an archaeologist specialising in the ancient Middle East, and she accompanied him on many digs in Syria and Iraq. In Death on the Nile (1937), Christie’s iconic Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, attempts to have a holiday cruising down the Nile on the steamer Karnak but is drawn into a saga of jealousy, betrayal and murder among his fellow European travellers. The dramatic setting of the ruins of ancient Egypt heightens the current of foreboding that runs through the novel.

__

Agatha CHRISTIE

Death Comes as the End

London, published for the Crime Club by Collins, 1945

RARES 823.912 C46D

While Agatha Christie set several of her mystery novels in modern countries with ancient histories, including Egypt and Iraq, she also wrote what is credited as being the first full-length historical detective novel. Death Comes as the End takes place in Thebes in 2000 bce and follows a series of murders plaguing an Egyptian family. It is notable for the high body count, for being the only Christie novel set in the past, and the only of her novels that does not feature any European characters. Christie based the plot on a real cache of letters written by a man named Heqanakhte to his family, translated by English Egyptologist Battiscombe Gunn.

__

Edmé-François JOMARD

Editor

The pyramids and the Sphinx, from Description de l’Egypte (Description of Egypt)

Paris, Imprimerie de C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1809–28

Exhibition print from RARESEF 913.32 J68

French soldiers and European civilians can be seen climbing on the Sphinx, while two Egyptians in the foreground look on.

__

Edmé-François JOMARD

Editor

The Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, from Description de l’Egypte (Description of Egypt)

Paris, Imprimerie de C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1809–28

RARESEF 913.32 J68

Published soon after Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798, this work led to the modern study of Egypt’s ancient history. The first edition was published over 20 years and reproduced the work of 175 scholars, scientists, artists and technicians who accompanied Napoleon’s army, including Edmé-François Jomard. The massive work consists of 900 plates in 11 volumes, nine text volumes and three of grand format. These latter volumes are the largest in the library’s collection; two are displayed here for the first time.

__

Edmé-François JOMARD

Editor

The Temple of Karnak at Thebes, from Description de l’Egypte (Description of Egypt)

Paris, Imprimerie de C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1809–28

Exhibition print from RARESEF 913.32 J68

__

Edmé-François JOMARD

Editor

Cairo, from Description de l’Egypte (Description of Egypt)

Paris, Imprimerie de C.L.F. Panckoucke, 1809–28

RARESEF 913.32 J68

__

Art and Nature

Botanical illustration unites the scientific and the artistic. Even with today’s digital imaging, botanical drawing remains the finest means of understanding and representing plant life.

Thousands of years ago, medicinal plants were identified in India, China and Mexico. The Greek physician Dioscorides’ De materia medica, published around 50–70 CE, was the first ‘herbal’, or manual of medicinal information relating to plants, and was a key botanical reference for centuries. The Renaissance brought the first printed herbals, followed by the works of the great botanical artists of the 19th century: Pierre-Joseph Redouté, John Sibthorp and Ferdinand Bauer.

__

Johannes VON CUBE

Compiler

Two leaves from Der Gart der Gesundheit (The Garden of Health)

Left: Augsburg, Hans Schoensperger, c. 1499

Right: Mainz, Peter Schoeffer, 1485

RARESEF 093 SCH7

Der Gart der Gesundheit was one of the first printed books on herbs, and it remains an important medieval work contributing to the study of natural history and medicinal plants.

__

John SIBTHORP

Flora Graeca (Greek Flowers), vol. 7

London, printed by Richard Taylor and Co., 1806–40

RARESEF 581.9495 SI1F

In 1786, botanical illustrator Ferdinand Bauer accompanied John Sibthorp, professor of botany at Oxford University, on a research trip to study the plants of the Mediterranean region. After producing more than 1500 sketches, Bauer returned to London, where he finished the drawings that formed the basis for Sibthorp’s ten-volume Flora Graeca. The work, completed by James Smith after Sibthorp’s death, contains almost 1000 engravings, mostly by the English artist James Sowerby, after Bauer’s illustrations.

__

Pierre-Joseph REDOUTÉ

Les Liliacées (The Lily Family), vol. 3

Paris, the author, 1802–15

RARESEF 584.32 R24

Pierre-Joseph Redouté was born in Flanders and moved to Paris in 1782 to make his name as a flower painter. Just prior to the French Revolution, he was offered a court appointment to Queen Marie Antoinette. Under the reign of Napoleon, he was commissioned to make pictorial records of Empress Joséphine’s newly established garden of rare plants at Malmaison. Redouté is best known for his masterpiece on the lily family, published in only 200 copies under Joséphine’s patronage.

__

Beverley J. EDNIE

Ficus macrophylla (Morton Bay Fig)

Watercolour, c. 2001–09

H2009.140/10

Elizabeth MORGAN

Quercus robur (English Oak)

Watercolour, 2007

H2009.140/34

__

Giorgio GALLESIO

Pomona Italiana, ossia trattato degli alberi fruttiferi,
vol. 2

Pisa, Co’ caratteri de’ F.F. Amoretti presso Niccolò Capurro, 1839

RARESEF 634 G13

Count Giorgio Gallesio worked on the Pomona Italiana from 1817 until his death, in 1839, compiling a comprehensive survey of Italy’s varieties of fruit and fruit trees. Featuring the work of around 20 artists and the same number of engravers, the plates appeared in 41 parts over the 22 years of the project. The fruits featured include eight varieties of apple, 22 of fig, 22 of peach, a dozen of cherry and six of apricot. Gallesio had previously published the Traité du Citrus (1811), which explains the otherwise conspicuous absence of oranges and lemons from the Pomona Italiana.

__

Giorgio GALLESIO

Pomona Italiana (Italian Fruits), vol. 3

Pisa, Co’ caratteri de’ F.F. Amoretti presso Niccolò Capurro, 1824

RARESEF 634 G13

__

Eileen E. FISHER

Slide 10, Amanita muscaria

Slide 11, Lactarius deliciosa

Exhibition prints from colour transparencies taken in 1969

Eileen Fisher Papers

YMS 13701

__

Ethel McLENNAN and Shirley HOËTTE

Authors

Nigrospora musae n. sp. and Its Connexion with ‘Squirter’ Disease in Bananas

Melbourne, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, 1933

S 606 AU7B (no.71-80)

Ethel McLennan (1891–1983) was employed as a tutor and lecturer in botany straight after graduation in 1915, publishing her first paper in 1916. She had a heavy teaching load, specialising in plant pathology and mycology, which became strong disciplines in the University of Melbourne’s Botany Department, largely due to her influence. These two subjects were also the main objects of her research, and she never veered from her chosen path. Her research focused on economically and agriculturally important plant diseases, finding the pathogens and suggesting treatments.

__

Ethel McLENNAN, J.S. TURNER and J.S. ROGERS

Authors

The Tropic Proofing of Optical Instruments

Melbourne, Ministry of Munitions, Ordnance Production Directorate, Scientific Instruments and Optical Panel, 1947

S 681.4 T85T

During World War II, Ethel McLennan was a leading member of a team working on bio-deterioration of optical instruments, particularly those used by the armed forces in the Pacific. After successful elucidation of the fungal causes, she devised remedies that were adopted by all Allied units. With the introduction of penicillin in the 1940s, she turned to researching sources for antibiotics in Australia, particularly in soil fungi. Working with such pathogens on a microscopic scale demanded new methods of observation and representation, including photography and schematic illustration.

__

Eileen E. FISHER

Fossil botany [student notebook] 1925–28

Eileen Fisher Papers

YMS 13701

Dr Eileen E. Fisher completed a Bachelor of Science in 1930 and a Master of Agricultural Sciences in 1931, both at the University of Melbourne, under Associate Professor Ethel McLennan (1891–1983), known as ‘Dr Mac’. The years around 1930 were considered a high point for women’s involvement in botany in general. Fisher was conducting her studies in an environment in which Dr Mac and other women were active and prominent figures. In addition to her career as a mycologist, Fisher engaged with issues affecting women in education. She was associated with organisations for women university students and graduates, and sought to expand educational opportunities for her female students.

__

Eileen E. FISHER

Specimen of Meliola polytricha var. major E. Fisher, collected by E. Fisher, June 1948, Gold Creek near Brisbane

Eileen Fisher Papers

YMS 13701

The records of Eileen Fisher contain many specimens, most of which consist of fungi and the ‘host’ plant. At first glance, it appears as if the leaves are the object of study rather than the much smaller fungi, appearing as small black spots of sooty mould on the surface of the leaves. Fisher studied sooty moulds for two decades, throughout the 1930s and 1940s.

__

Eileen E. FISHER

Specimen of Eucalyptus sieberiana, collected by L. Fraser on 26 January 1935 from Bairnsdale, Victoria

Eileen Fisher Papers

YMS 13701

The records of Eileen Fisher contain many specimens, most of which consist of fungi and a ‘host’ plant. At first glance it appears the object of study is the leaves themselves, as the fungi are much smaller, appearing as small black spots of sooty mould on the surface of the leaves. Fisher studied sooty moulds for two decades, throughout the 1930s and 1940s.

__

Eileen E. FISHER

Specimens of Lemicinia sp. and Microcera coccophila on Leptospermum lanigerum var. montanum, collected in 1940

Eileen Fisher Papers

YMS 13701

__

Eileen E. FISHER

Specimen of Limacinia phlocophilia on Fungea peduncularis, collected in c. 1940

Eileen Fisher Papers

YMS 13701

Eileen E. FISHER

Specimen of Leptospermum scoparium, collected by L. Fraser on 24 January 1935 from the Dandenong district, Victoria

Eileen Fisher Papers

YMS 13701

Eileen Fisher’s work was not confined to the laboratory or the university. She collected specimens from many locations in the field, across eastern Australia. Samples were simply stored in a sheet of paper folded into a neat parcel; it was labelled with important details, including species, date, place of collection and sometimes the collectors, including Fisher and other botanists.

__

Eileen E. FISHER

Specimen of Dicksonia antarctica, collected in Macedon by M. Fawcett, May 1938

Eileen Fisher Papers

YMS 13701

__

Eileen E. FISHER

Specimen of Asterina correicoloa, collected in Marysville, May 1938

Eileen Fisher Papers

YMS 13701

__

Elizabeth CONABERE

Fly agaric, Amanita muscaria

Fungi

Watercolours, 1982

H2012.122/31, H2012.122/36

__

James SOWERBY

Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms, vol. 1

London, printed by J. Davis, 1797

RARESF 589.2 SO9

James Sowerby, a natural history artist, publisher and collector, first began drawing wildflowers and plants for miniature portraits. He subsequently became an illustrator for leading English and French botanists. In 1790, he and Sir James Edward Smith, a respected botanist, began work on their acclaimed book of English botany. Sowerby subsequently published Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms. A prolific artist, he made 440 drawings for this study, as well as models of the poisonous and edible fungi to ‘prevent further mistakes’. This pioneering work includes notes on the cultivation and decorative qualities of mushrooms, as well as their usefulness in cooking and dyeing.

__

James SOWERBY

Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms, vol. 2

London, printed by J. Davis, 1797

RARESF 589.2 SO9

__

James SOWERBY

Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms, vol. 3

London, printed by J. Davis, 1797

RARESF 589.2 SO9

__

Artists and Books

Books are valued not only for their content but also for their beauty and craft. Since the invention of the codex in the first century CE, artists have been intimately involved in book production, from papermaking and illustration to design and binding.

The mass production and consequent decline in the quality of books in the 19th century prompted artists such as William Morris to revive traditional bookmaking crafts, laying the foundations for the fine press movement. Contemporary artists continue to challenge the nature of the book, ensuring its future as an ever-changing object to be admired, read, viewed, and desired.

__

Book Arts

Since the development of the codex by the Romans in the first century CE, numerous arts have become central to the production of the book. While the original purpose of binding books was to protect their pages, fine bookbinding transformed books into objects of beauty.

Marbling, the art of printing multicoloured patterns on paper or fabric, was practised in Japan by the 12th century. It was in use in Turkey and Persia by the 15th century, and by the 17th century it had spread to Europe – examples here are from the Wallace Kirsop Collection. Marbling declined with the mass production of books during the Industrial Revolution, but it has been revived in recent years as part of the fine press movement.

Domino papers are printed using woodblock matrices (one for each colour present), a practice going back to at least the 16th century in France. Such papers can be used as book bindings, as endpapers, as decorative paper inside coffrets (caskets) and as wallpaper.

__

Examples of marbled paper

RARE Books Collection

The technique of marbling paper – creating decorative patterns that resemble the natural swirls of colour in marble, a type of limestone – originated in Central Asia around the 15th century. Coloured inks are added to a mixture known as ‘size’, which contains additives that make inks float on the surface. Patterns are formed by blowing on the surface or dragging a human hair across it. The paper is applied to capture a print of the pattern.

__

AESOP

Author

Monsieur LE ROY

Translator

Nouveau choix des fables d’Ésope, avec la version Latine, et l’explication des mots en francois …
(New Selection of Aesop’s Fables, with a Latin Version, and Explanation of the Words in French …)

Paris, Chez J. Barbou, 1789

RAREWK 888.6 AE8L

Wallace Kirsop Collection

__

Pierre Louis MAUPERTUIS

Lettre sur le progrès des sciences (Letter on the Progress of the Sciences)

Paris, Chez Etienne de Bourdeaux,

Libraire du Roy et de la Cour, 1752

RAREWK 919 M445L

Wallace Kirsop Collection

A decorated paper wrapper was a good option for binding slim pamphlets and short works such as this one. But if an owner intended to create a sammelband (German for ‘anthology’, a term used widely in all languages), they’d collect short works to be bound together in a more permanent and durable binding.

__

Heinrich STACKER

Theatrum in quo res gestae beatissimi patris ac monachorum Patriarchae Benedicti velut in scena spectantae atque Christianis omnibus imitandae proponuntur (The Theatre in Which the Deeds of the Most Blessed Father and the Monks of the Patriarch Benedict Are Seen …)

[Munich], the author, [c. 1600]

RAREWKF 271.102 B4343S (1600)

Wallace Kirsop Collection

The woodblock-printed decorative paper wrapper on this book dates from around 100 years later than the pages it encloses, and it shows evidence of heavy use. The stab-stitching on the left that attaches the wrapper is unprofessional in nature, showing how anyone could attach decorative paper to a favourite book. This book uses images to tell the story of the life of St Benedict of Monte Cassino.

__

Jacques NECKER

De l’importance des opinions religieuses
(On the Importance of Religious Opinions)

London [possibly a false imprint for Paris], and

found at Hôtel de Thou, rue des Poitevins, Paris, 1788

RAREWK 230 N282L (1788)

Wallace Kirsop Collection

This publication by Jacques Necker, controversial Genevan banker and finance minister to the ill-fated French King Louis xvi, survives in its original domino paper wrappers, as issued by the anonymous publisher. An owner might choose to remove these wrappers and have the book bound more permanently according to their own taste, perhaps in a similar style to other books in their library, but in this case, owners through the centuries have been content with the humble paper wrappers.

__

Thomas GUMBLE

La vie du general Monk duc d’Albemarle, &c (The Life of General Monck, Duke of Abermarle, etc.)

London, Robert Scot, 1672

RAREWK 923.542 M743G (1672)

Wallace Kirsop Collection

Unknown author

French manuscript commentary on the Linnean classification system c. 1800

RAREWK 580.12 EX76L (1800)

Wallace Kirsop Collection

The boards of the 17th-century volume at the rear are covered with continental 18th-century floral block-printed wallpaper, while those of the manuscript volume at the front are covered in a loosely marbled paper.

__

Jean-François MARMONTEL

Suite des Contes moraux (Collection of Moral Stories)

Paris, Chez Lesclapart le jeune, Quai de Gêvres, 1762

RAREWK 843.5 M345CS (1762)

Wallace Kirsop Collection

The block-printed paper wrappers on this edition of the Marmontel – a contemporary of Voltaire and Diderot, who contributed to the latter’s Encylopedie project – are relatively crude in nature. Together with the other examples in this display, they indicate the wide variety of quality and cost of decorated papers available for publishers and book owners to use as either temporary or permanent wrappers.

__

Philippe QUINAULT

Phaeton (Phaeton) and Thésée (Theseus)

[Paris], De l’imprimerie de Jean-Baptiste-Christophe Ballard, seul imprimeur du Roy & de l’Académie royale de musique, 1729 and 1730

RAREWK 842.5 Q42P (1729); RAREWK 842.5 Q42P (1730)

Wallace Kirsop Collection

Libretti (the lyrics to an opera) are a form well suited to the light, flexible and portable nature of a paper wrapper. This made it easy for performers to hold them on stage during rehearsals. These two libretti by Quinault appear to be a matching set, bound in similarly marbled papers: on the left a tight comb pattern, on the right a looser version of the same technique. The marbler has dragged a special comb through the coloured pigment that lies on the surface of the liquid before placing a sheet of paper down to capture the pattern.

__

Simon Nicolas Henri LINGUET

La France plus qu’angloise … (France More than English …)

Brussells, [publisher unknown], 1788

RAREWK 944.035 L647F (1788)

Wallace Kirsop Collection

Alexandre-Jérôme Loiseau de MAULÉON

Mémoire pour le sieur de Valdahon, mousquetaire de la première compagnie (Memoir for the Lord of Valdahon, Musketeer of the First Company)

Paris, Chez Merlin, libraire, à l’entrée de la rue de la Harpe,

en venant par la rue de la Bouclerie, 1765

RAREWK 364.1530944 L958M (1765)

Wallace Kirsop Collection

Like their clients, publishers and booksellers (then often the same person) had a choice of papers for their temporary – sometimes to become permanent – bindings. The least expensive option was plain paper, often blue like the example above. Marbled papers, like the example here in the ‘French snail’ pattern, involved more labour to produce and would be more expensive.

__

Embroidered Bindings from the
John Emmerson Collection

This display celebrates some of the most beautiful and fragile books from the John Emmerson Collection, bequeathed to the library in 2015: the embroidered bindings.

Embroidery and needlework were part of the fabric of everyday life in the 17th century. From the stitching that embellished samplers and domestic linen to the needlework that decorated undyed canvas with cotton and wool to the sumptuous dyed silks and precious metal spangles and threads used in royal and liturgical embroideries, decorated textiles could be found throughout domestic and formal interiors, on furniture, wall hangings, mirrors, bodies and on books.

Embroidered bindings were important luxury goods at the court of King Charles I (r. 1623–49), and several surviving examples are associated with Charles’ queen, Henrietta Maria, including two books displayed here.

__

Joseph HALL

Author

Meditations and Vowes, Divine and Morall

London, printed by Tho[mas] Purfoot for Arthur Johnson, Samuell Macham, and Lawrence Lyle, 1609

RAREEMM 425/18 John Emmerson Collection

This text, written for a female readership, is bound in a contemporary fine binding of maroon velvet with floral designs in silver and coloured thread and sequins. It bears a close resemblance to the work of calligrapher, miniaturist and binder Esther Inglis (1571–1624). Inglis was born in the largely Catholic country of France to Protestant parents, who fled to Scotland to avoid persecution. Her mother, Marie, was a scribe, and Esther became an exceptionally skilled embroiderer, with many wealthy patrons. Of the 47 surviving manuscripts, 17 are in embroidered bindings stitched by Inglis herself.

__

Eikon Basilike: The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majesty in His Solitudes and Suffering …

London, printed for R. Royston, at the Angel in Ivy-Lane, 1649

RAREEMM 815/8

John Emmerson Collection

Charles was mourned as well as scorned by his former subjects. At his execution, people dipped their handkerchiefs into his blood, creating relics of a man who would be canonised as a martyr-saint by the Church of England in 1660. Ten days after his death, a printed work known as the Eikon Basilike (Greek for ‘royal portrait’) appeared, based in part on manuscript writings by the king. It defended his actions as a monarch and was published in 36 editions in 1649 alone. Some, like this example, with its embroidered binding featuring a portrait of the king holding the book, were small enough to be carried secretly by Charles’ supporters.

__

Master SLATER (Thomas HEYWOOD)

The New-yeeres Gift …

London, printed by N. and I. Okes,

dwelling in Little St. Bartholmewes, 1636

RAREEMM 167/11

John Emmerson Collection

This beautiful volume is bound in a piece of a silk waistcoat of Charles I. The blue ties are said to be ribbons from an Order of the Garter. The printed text inside is dedicated to ‘Lord Minimus’, the nickname of Jeffrey Hudson (1619–c. 1682), a short-statured man employed by Henrietta Maria as ‘the Queen’s dwarf’ and who likely lived with a growth-hormone deficiency. Hudson fought on the Royalist side in the Civil War and fled with Henrietta Maria to France after Charles’ execution, but he refused to continue in his demeaning court role. This book would have been a presentation gift to an important courtier.

__

Richard HOOKER

Author

Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie

London, printed by William Stansbye and to be sold

by George Lathum, 1636

RAREEMM 815/7 John Emmerson Collection

This embroidered binding was likely presented as a gift to Henrietta Maria, Charles 1’s queen, due to its similarity with another such binding in the British Library. It depicts military figures within raised silver wirework cartouches featuring lions’ heads and gryphons, which are applied to a white silk ground with coloured silk and silver thread and spangles. The original red fabric ties are missing. Importantly, this binding is one of a group of eight identified by antiquarian bookseller Robert Harding as produced by a single workshop, due to their stylistic similarities.

__

The Book of Common Prayer … with the Psalter or Psalmes of David

London, printed by William Stansbye and to be sold by George Lathum, 1636

The Holy Bible …

London, by Robert Barker, printer to the Kings most excellent Majestie: and by the assignes of John Bill, 1637

The Genealogies Recorded in the Sacred Scriptures, According to Every Family and Tribe …

[London], [F. Kingston], 1637

RAREEMM 2019/11

John Emmerson Collection

This binding, with the book to its left, is part of a small group of embroidered bindings that were likely produced by the same workshop. The similarity of the raised silver wirework cartouches and the lions’ heads is striking. It is possible that this book, a compilation of three Anglican religious texts, was also presented to Henrietta Maria, Charles 1’s queen. The fact that this book and the one to its left are both Anglican religious texts makes them a pointed gift to a Catholic queen married to the head of the Church of England.

__

Andrew MACREDIE

Trio ‘Sweet Tale of Avoca’ Kinnear Swanston, Ern Nicol, Bob Nicol Silhouettes

Mixed media, 1854

MS14870/2

Andrew Macredie was a Scottish colonial pastoralist, as well as a cartoonist and illustrator. He came to Victoria in 1848, and in 1855 joined his brother, Robert, in managing the pastoral run of ‘Banyenong’, on the banks of the Avon River. Originally settled by the Donald family in 1844, after which the nearby town of Donald was named, the station was a social centre for settlers on the Richardson River in the 1860s. It was at this time that Macredie produced the two volumes of silhouettes, that the Manuscripts Collection at the library is fortunate to hold.

__

Andrew MACREDIE

‘Aunt Amy’, ‘Uncle Ben’ and ‘Grandmama’ from Trio ‘Sweet Tale of Avoca’ Kinnear Swanston, Ern Nicol, Bob Nicol Silhouettes

Mixed media, 1854

MS14870/3

Andrew Macredie produced his first volume of silhouettes, He Presents His Book of Beauty to Ye Queen Yerof, in 1854.The silhouettes depict Macredie’s friends and neighbours at ‘Banyenong’, including local pastoralists and their wives (77 people are depicted in a total of 69 plates). Many of the works have the names of the sitters on the back, and some include quotes. The silhouettes are cut from black paper; some are highlighted with white, gold or cream watercolour. They are pasted onto light-coloured paper. Often single figures are depicted, but there are also ‘conversation piece’ silhouettes, showing groups of people interacting with each other.

__

Penelope HEDDINGTON

‘Very embarrassing’
‘I have nothing on’

Australian artists postcard collection, 1905

H35190/1, H81.279/5

Saucy, silly postcards became popular in the late 19th century and were usually associated with vacations and tourism. The light-hearted mood is reflected in the text on the back of ‘I have nothing on’: ‘I am surprised at you wandering around in this fashion and at your age too. Kind regards to all at Fairview. – Jule’. The card was addressed to Capt Geo O’May, SS Derwent, Hobart, postmarked Launceston, 1906. ‘Very embarrassing’, although similar in sentiment and style, has a different publisher.

__

Ann COPELAND

Library Assets (Silhouette Portraits of Library Staff)

Melbourne, 2016

Pictures Collection

Ann Copeland is a librarian and genealogy specialist at State Library Victoria. She created these portraits of colleagues as a tribute to the library’s most important assets. They were part of a 2016 staff exhibition held in the Joyce McGrath Gallery, titled Wildcards & Fugitives. The exhibition was composed of artworks by library staff, volunteers and fellows, using blank catalogue cards. This is Ann’s tribute to the unsung heroes who care for the collection and make it available to Victorians and the wider world, so the shadowy technique of the silhouette is appropriate. Yet, Grant, Katie, Craig, Paul, Carmen and Berta will be easily recognised by those who know them.

__

Yūsuke ŌNO

Shirayukihime = Snow White

Kyoto, Seigensha, 2015

RARES 398.2 SN618O

Yūsuke Ōno was born in Germany in 1983. He studied architecture at the University of Tokyo. While a practising architect, he is also active in design and visual arts. Snow White was first published in Germany in 1812 and is one of the most widely recognised fairytales from the brothers Grimm. This contemporary interpretation creates a 360-degree panorama that expands the book into a three-dimensional sculpture. Ōno exploits the light and shade of silhouettes and the complementary colours of red and green to invoke the struggle between good and evil, danger and innocence, in this classic tale. The work recalls the traditional art of papercutting, but in this case the images are laser cut.

__

Unknown author

Bilder-Zauberein: eine amüsante Unterhaltung für Jung und Alt = Blow Book, or Magic Picture Book: Amusing and Interesting for Young and Old

Berlin, Luxus Papier Fabrik, 1880

RAREALMA 793.8 B49Z

The ‘blow book’ is a book specially designed for performing a magic trick. The earliest examples date from the 17th century. They were made and used by magicians to create the illusion of completely changing the book’s contents by simply blowing on it or tapping it with a wand. This blow book includes instructions in several languages, allowing the one edition to be sold internationally. It is intended for young readers and magicians. The range of transformations reflect childhood pastimes of the 1880s, including knotwork, stamps and puzzles. One transformation reveals the book as filled with silhouettes of romantic and humorous characters from folktales.

__

Charles Seddon EVANS

Author

Arthur RACKHAM

Artist

The Sleeping Beauty

New York, Exeter Books, 1987

RAREJ 398.21 EV151S

Arthur Rackham was a key figure in the ‘golden age’ of illustrated children’s books, illustrating many works from the canon of European fairytales. He was a master in the traditions of caricature, costume, exaggeration and the grotesque. First published in 1920 as a companion to Cinderella is Arthur Rackham’s exquisite version of The Sleeping Beauty. The silhouettes in these two books reflect the drama and delicacy of his superb draughtsmanship.

__

Richard DOVE

Author

Kyoko IMAZU

Artist

The Promise

Lara, Vic., Little White Bird Press, 2021

JLT A823.4 D751P

The Promise is a collaborative work by author and poet Richard Dove and artist Kyoko Imazu, both based in Melbourne. Imazu has worked with papercutting and silhouettes in a range of artist’s books, installations, performance and collaborative projects. This modern fable is inspired by the volcanic plains of Werribee and the city of Melbourne. Flinders Street Station, Nauru House and other iconic buildings can be seen in this landscape. Each illustration in The Promise was cut from a single sheet of black paper, and if you look closely you can see the soft edge of a shadow in some places, preserving the original papercuts in the printed image.

__

Silhouettes and Shadowgraphy

This display explores two genres of shadow art that flourished in the 19th century and have persisted to the present day.

The term ‘silhouette’ was named for French official Etienne de Silhouette, who was responsible for massive spending cuts in the mid-1700s; it became slang for ‘cheap’. Nevertheless, silhouettes became very popular and offered a cheap, accessible alternative to miniature portrait paintings. The portraits were cut by hand, while the sitter posed in profile.

While silhouettes are usually a static graphic art, shadowgraphy – also described as shadow shows, hand shadows, ombromanie, ombre chinoises and shadow play – is dynamic. It involves the performance of shadows (created using hands, figures or puppets) cast on a wall or screen. Shadow puppetry began in religious rituals in 11th-century Turkey and the Middle East. In the West, shadowgraphy was popularised by magicians and vaudevillians as theatrical entertainment. Instructional books appeared from the mid-19th century and were filled with evermore creatures and characters, and increasingly elaborate apparatus.

__

Henry BURSILL

Hand Shadows to Be Thrown upon the Wall

London, Griffith and Farran, [1859]

ALMAC 793.9 B948H

This slim booklet shows the European interest in antipodean novelties, including a cockatoo and a black swan in its collection of hand shadows.

__

Félicien TREWEY

How It Is Done

Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, Jordison & Co., 1893

ALMACP 793.9 T72CJ

At the age of 15, Félicien Trewey left home to become a magician and tightrope walker. He toured internationally and was celebrated for his unusual entertainments, including shadowgraphy, balancing tricks and chapeaugraphy (a novelty act in which a piece of felt is manipulated to look like a hat). He was particularly adept at conjuring famous personalities. This English translation of his booklet on shadowgraphy was published at the height of his fame. It includes many well-known illusions – but even more, extravagant self-promotion.

__

Charles Auguste WATILLIAUX

‘Napoleon’ from Ombrascopes: Ou ombres à projeter

Paris, Charles Auguste Wailliaux, [c. 1885]

ALMAC 791.53 OM19W

During the 19th century, educational toys often combined science, historical figures and popular interests of the time. This ombrascope box includes portraits of a Spanish beauty, a gorilla and Victor Hugo. A chromolithograph illustration on the lid shows a young girl holding a cut-out of Napoleon in front of a candle. The title itself is playfully rendered, casting its own shadow above her. An unusual detail is the use of ‘white shadows’, the paper stencil cut to produce a positive image on the projected surface rather than a ‘negative’, or dark figure, characteristic of silhouettes.

__

Louis NIKOLA

Hand Shadows: The Complete Art of Shadowgraphy

London, Pearson 1921

ALMAC 793.9 N58H

__

Chocolat Ruelle Bruxelles

Maker

Trade cards, Nº.s 63, 66, 67, 68

Brussels, c. 1920

ALMACF 793.8 C68C

__

Walter WHITE

Walking Shadows: An Essay on Lotte Reiniger’s Silhouette Films

London, Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, 1931

A 778.5 W58

Lotte Reiniger drew inspiration from traditional Asian shadow puppetry, which had been practised for hundreds of years. She elevated animation to innovative new heights, using beautifully articulated flat models. She also produced the first feature-length animation, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, in 1926, using stop-motion photography. Walter White published this critical appreciation of her ground-breaking work a few years later. Reiniger devoted her entire career to this art form. Her work is defined by great artistry, fluency and imagination, and she has inspired many filmmakers, from Walt Disney to Tim Burton.

__

Cecil Henry BULLIVANT

Home Fun

London, Nelson, 1942

ALMAC 793.8 B87H (1942)

Home Fun was first published in 1910, in a simpler time. This revised edition was issued during World War 11 and one can imagine it would have provided welcome distraction for families enduring London’s blackouts and destruction, when few other entertainments were available.

__

Jacob GRIMM

Author

Mihkel PÄBUS

Artist

Bird, frog, Thumbelina, fairy and butterfly puppets, from Shadow Play Thumbelina

[Sheridan, WY], Shadow Play, [2017]

W.G. Alma Conjuring Collection

This very modern interpretation of the fairytale by Jacob Grimm incorporates elements from early examples of shadowgraphy. In place of a candle or a lamp, the sharp led light of a smartphone is used, with a small cardboard easel included to keep the storyteller’s hands free. Other digital enhancements include a qr code to link the puppets to written and audio texts online. The series in which this work appears, Shadow Play, was created by Natalia Andreeva.

__

Jacob GRIMM

Author

Mihkel PÄBUS

Shadow Play: The Bremen Town Musicians

[Sheridan, WY], Shadow Play, [2018]

ALMACF 791.5 AN2555B

This work incorporates digital technology and traditional papercutting but looks like a conventional book – the pages can be turned one at a time and viewed as silhouettes. The concertina format, however, allows for more theatrical play: the book can stand upright on a table or be opened out and used to project shadows on the ceiling, for viewing while in bed. Shadow play both ignites the imagination and dispels a fear of the dark. The capacity for movement, distortion and shifting scale distinguishes shadowgraphy from a silhouette.

__

Deborah KLEIN

Memory 1, 16, 14, and 9, from Leaves of Absence

Ballarat, Moth Woman Press, 2017

RARELTF 702.81 K67LE

Deborah Klein is a painter, printmaker and book artist. She uses silhouettes as a metaphor for marginalisation and invisibility. These silhouette portraits of Chinese women have been hand painted onto pressed eucalyptus leaves gathered in the Victorian Goldfields region, near her home in Ballarat. Klein has photographed the embellished leaves, editing the photographs using filters on a smartphone app to achieve this series of archival pigment prints. As a child, Klein was captivated by the films of animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger. Her influence can be felt in these haunting portraits of forgotten women, left behind during the gold rush, when thousands of Chinese miners flocked to Victoria to seek their fortune, often at a cost of great hardship.

__

Broadsheet 1: Napalm Sunday

Richmond, Broadsheet Publishers, 1967

PCPOSTER 94

The use of a large-format single sheet as a vehicle for printed images of protest and satire dates back almost to the invention of printing in the 15th century. In the 1960s, the tradition was revived in the context of social unrest and opposition to the Vietnam War. The deliberately blunt style of Broadsheet, making no concessions to conventional ideas of layout, adds to its impact as a political document. This first issue includes work by Noel Counihan, Udo Sellbach and Ian Turner.

__

Broadsheet 2: The Great Australian Summer

Richmond, Broadsheet Publishers, 1967

PCPOSTER 94

__

Broadsheet 6: A Time for Peace

Richmond, Broadsheet Publishers, 1970

RARELTEF 052.94 B78

__

Designing Books

The role of all books is to communicate. While the words and images form the messages to be conveyed, graphic design is the vehicle by which this is done.

The introduction of the printing press, around 1455, enabled multiple copies of identical books to be produced for the first time, opening up a new range of possibilities for font style and size. In the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution and the development of mass printing automated typesetting, and photographic forms of reproduction also greatly expanded the role of graphic design, as books were increasingly produced for larger and more competitive markets. Nothing, however, would match the impact of the computer on the possibilities open to designers in shaping the look and the character of the book.

Throughout these many developments, artists have always broken accepted rules of design to produce work that is adventurous and experimental.

__

Tricontinental Bulletin

Havana, Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, 1967–73

RARES 327.05 T73B

The bimonthly magazine Tricontinental was first published in 1966; it was joined by the monthly Tricontinental Bulletin in 1967. It emerged from the conference of the same name organised by the Cuban left-wing Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The magazines were known for their bold graphics, which reflected the strident politics of their organisers. Many of the eye-catching covers, which were printed as original screen-prints, carried portraits of revolutionary leaders such as Lenin, Ho Chi Minh and, in particular, Che Guevara. The magazines ceased production in 1980, due to financial difficulties, but publication of Tricontinental recommenced in 1995.

__

Changing Forms of the Book

What does it mean to read a book? This display challenges traditional modes of reading and explores the form and possibilities of the book as a visual object.

When digital technology began to enable the easy dissemination of large amounts of text and sales of e-books and e-readers boomed, many predicted the end of the physical book. In recent years, however, worldwide sales of books have surged, while e-book sales have declined – a shift led by the reading preferences of younger generations.

Perhaps responding to the challenge of digital forms, artists and publishers have increasingly issued books that are desirable as physical objects as well as to be read. Designers continue to develop new, lavish forms of book construction and packaging.

A book may now come in the form of a circle or a concertina, a sculpture or a suitcase. This diversity is a testament to our ongoing love affair with the book.

__

Luke You

You zine

Melbourne, Luke You, [2011]

RARE Books Collection

__

Ann STURMEY

Taken as Red

Melbourne, Artisan Books, 2006

RARELTF 702.81 ST9T

In this artist’s book, Ann Sturmey has altered six former library books by removing their centres and placing them perpendicular to the page, to create the illusion of a library shelf. On the recto of the work, only the spines are visible; on the verso, only the foredges. The title alludes to the idea of assuming content without reading and to the colour spectrum of most of the bindings she altered.

__

Anne-Maree HUNTER

Nailed

Highfields, NSW, the artist, 2005

RARELTEF 702.81 H9169 (2005)

This piece, produced as part of Hunter’s PhD project entitled ‘The Eclectic Bibliothèque’, is a recovered book nailed shut. The contents of the book are now unknown, subverting our sense of being able to know and understand it. Instead, we are forced to contemplate the book as a sculptural object with many variant understandings, or ‘readings’.

__

Alex SELENTISCH

Art Guide, Rebound #1 and Art Guide, Rebound #2b

Melbourne, the artist, 2011

RARELT 702.81 SE4AG/1, RARELT 702.81 SE4AG/2b

Gift of Alex Selenitsch, 2022

Architect, visual artist and poet Alex Selenitsch has a long history of experimenting with the relationship between text and form. His 1969 exhibition of visual poetry (sometimes known as concrete poetry) at Sweeney Reed’s Strines Gallery, in Carlton, was the first show of its kind in Australia. In the two volumes seen here, extracted from a longer series, Selenitsch has used duct tape to seal and decorate found copies of Art Guide Australia – a magazine about Australian contemporary art practice and exhibitions – to create a meta-narrative of art practice and reading.

__

Norbert SCHOERNER

The Order of Things

London, Phaidon, 2001

RARESF 702.81 SCH60

German photographer Norbert Schoerner’s first commission was for Face magazine in 1989. He has since been involved in advertising campaigns and projects for Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, Nike, Armani, Miu Miu, Alexander McQueen and Shiseido. The Order of Things incorporates images from Japan and London interleaved with a series of portraits and personal photographic stories. The circular form of the work allows it to function as a graphic narrative without beginning or end, and it cannot be read in a traditional mode.

__

Nicholas JONES

Medallion

Melbourne, the artist, 1999

RARELT 702.81 J71M

Since 1998, British-born, Melbourne-based artist Nicholas Jones has been interrogating the form of the book and the future of the written word. His altered book sculptures are painstakingly created from found books. In some instances, Jones carves into the book’s surface to reveal its stratigraphy; in other pieces, such as Medallion, he completely reconfigures the book’s form. Medallion is composed of the pages of a book formed into a disc, wrapped in thread and sealed with wax like a letter that will never be opened.
__

Fyodor DOSTOYEVSKY

Author

Ron ARAD

Designer

The Idiot

London, Penguin Books, 2006

RARESF 741.64 P37 STW

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Penguin Classics, this edition of Dostoyevky’s The Idiot is published in the Designer Classic series, in a limited edition of 1000 numbered copies. Designer Ron Arad elected to present the book with no cover, the reader encountering the author’s first words with no mediation. It is encased in an acrylic slipcase with a Fresnel lens, giving the appearance of the text moving as one removes the lid. Arad has written: By not wanting to have a cover, it ended with the book becoming an amazing object that is alive, but which maintains its transparency. It becomes a glorious box with a book inside, almost like a monument.

__

Dianne LONGLEY

Threads Drawn from the Past, Towards a Digital Future

Hindmarsh, SA, Illumination Press, 2005

RARELTEF 702.81 L86TD

Dianne Longley is a South Australian artist working in various media, including printmaking, artist’s books, on-glaze porcelain, small-scale bronze casting, and encaustic, oil and pokerwork on wooden panels. This artist’s book is presented in a small suitcase. It contains family artefacts and documents, and a set of postcard images with narrative text, which can be shuffled and read in any order. An evolving website accompanies this book; it contains a growing collection of Longley family stories and memories that can be freely navigated by the viewer. The flexible format of both book and website echoes the non-linear nature of personal and collective memory.

__

David SCHILTER

No Brains, Nº.s 1–5

Riga, Latvia, the author, 2012

RARESF Zines Box 476

The barbed-wire wrapped around these zines make it dangerous to try to read them, though it is unclear if author’s intent for the wire is aesthetic or philosophical, or both.

__

Ron KING

Two screen-prints from The Prologue from the Canterbury Tales: Text Based Mainly on the Ellesmere MS

London, Circle Press, 1967

RARESEF 821.1 C39CP

Ron King’s Circle Press was born out of necessity. In 1966, his first printed book–an edition of medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer’s Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, illustrated with images of large, abstracted mask designs–was not published after it was completed, so the artist took on the task himself. In the 57 years since, King has continued to produce exquisitely realised printed works.

__

Ron KING

Artist

Roy FISHER

Poet

Anansi’, from Anansi Company: A Collection of Thirteen Hand-made Wire and Card Rod-Puppets Animated in Colour and Verse

London, Circle Press, 1992

RARESEF 702.81 K5801A

Inspired by the West African folk story of Anansi the Spider, master printmaker Ron King collaborated with poet Roy Fisher to produce this limited-edition artist book. The trickster god of stories, wisdom and knowledge, Anansi is a key character in the oral cultures of West African, African American and the Caribbean diaspora communities, including in London where King works. Using silk-screen, hand-printing and letterpress, King brings the characters to life in literal way, creating removable wire and card articulated puppets that can be used by the reader.

__

Ron KING

Artist

Roy FISHER

Poet

Snake’, from Anansi Company: A Collection of Thirteen Hand-made Wire and Card Rod-Puppets Animated in Colour and Verse

London, Circle Press, 1992

RARESEF 702.81 K5801A

In this story, Anansi become jealous of the Tiger’s reputation as the strongest and bravest animal in the forest when the other animals tease the Spider for being the weakest creature. The Tiger agrees that their shared stories will be known as Anansi Stories if the Spider can capture the Snake.

__

Ron KING

Artist

Roy FISHER

Poet

Tiger’, from Anansi Company: A Collection of Thirteen Hand-made Wire and Card Rod-Puppets Animated in Colour and Verse

London, Circle Press, 1992

RARESEF 702.81 K5801A

Against the odds and after many failed attempts, the tiny Spider outwits the huge Snake and traps him by pretending to measure him against a bamboo pole to prove his fearsome size. The Spider ties the Snake to the pole and wins his prize from the Tiger. The tales are henceforth known as Anansi Stories.

__

Artists, Printmaking and Books

It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful.

Vincent Van Gogh

For as long as books have been illustrated, artists have been central to books’ creation. Many artists who work predominantly in other media have also been involved in creating imagery for books. For some, such as printmakers, this represents a minor shift in their practice, while for painters and sculptors it is a dramatic move.

From the masterful printmaking of Albrecht Dürer (who created art equally for the wall and the page) to the radically seamless relationship between word and image in William Blake’s work, books have long disseminated artists’ visions to new audiences. In the 20th century and beyond, artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Robert Jacks, Petr Herel and Ron King have found the book a medium with which to experiment with new forms of image-making.

__

Petr HEREL

Artist

Four Pages from a Register of Souls: Four Etchings

Melbourne, Uncollected Works, 2014

RARELTEF 702.81 H421F (2014)

Donated by Sophie Herel, 2019

__

Guillaume APOLLINAIRE

Author

Petr HEREL

Artist

Zone

Canberra, Labyrinth Press, 1988

RARELTF 702.81 H42Z

Born in Horice, Czechoslovakia, Petr Herel had an established reputation as a printmaker in Prague and Paris before arriving in Australia in 1973. Returning to Europe, he taught at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Dijon, France, in 1977–78. In 1979, he settled in Australia, heading the Graphic Investigation Workshop at the newly formed Canberra School of Art, now the Australian National University School of Art, a position he held until his retirement from teaching in 1998. Herel lived and worked in Melbourne for many years. His prints are exhibited widely, both locally and internationally.

__

Petr HEREL

Fragments et grains de pollen de Novalis

Losne, France, Thierry Bouchard, 1980

RARELT 702.81 H42F

Donated by Anne Louise O’Dowd through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, 2010

Herel published more than 90 artist’s books between 1965 and 2005, with an attention to detail that invites close scrutiny and constructs an intimacy between artist, book and viewer.

__

Pascal COMMÈRE

Poet

Petr HEREL

Artist

Talus n’est-ce que cela vraiment je voudrais dire

Canberra, Labyrinth Press, 1989

RARELT 702.81 H421T (1989)

Donated by Sophie Herel, 2019

This artist’s book was produced as limited edition of 60 numbered copies on Hahnemühle vellum (a type of paper), signed by the poet and the illustrator. The library’s copy is number five.

__

John DONNEL

Poet

Thierry BOUCHARD

Translator

Petr HEREL

Artist

Hymne to God My God in My Sicknesse = Hymne à Dieu mon Dieu, du fond de ma maladie

Losne, France, printed by Thierry Bouchard

for the Labyrinth Press, 1986

RARELTEF 702.81 H421B/2

Donated by Sophie Herel, 2019

The English clergyman and poet John Donne wrote Hymne to God My God in My Sicknesse during a period of severe illness; scholars debate whether this was in 1623, when he contracted a serious fever, or shortly before his death, in 1631. This exquisite edition features a French translation by Petr Herel’s long-time collaborator Thierry Bouchard, along with an etching by Herel that evokes the form of a gravestone.

__

Angela CAVALIERI

Luce

Hand-printed linocut and oil on canvas, 2005

H2008.47

Angela Cavalieri is a Melbourne-based printmaker and creator of artist’s books. Her monumental linocuts on canvas challenge the definitions of a process generally associated with the intimate and small scale. Born in Australia to parents who had migrated from Calabria, Cavalieri first learnt to communicate in Italian. Her ongoing connection with the language is expressed through the use of Italian text in her works. Luce was inspired by a residency undertaken by Cavalieri at the British School in Rome in 2003. It depicts text encircling the interior of a dome. The form is based on Donato Bramante’s Tempietto of San Pietro in Rome, but also resonates here under the library’s own Domed Reading Room.

__

Acknowledgements

State Library Victoria is grateful to the following organisations and individuals for their involvement, assistance and advice in the realisation of this exhibition.

The estate of Gertrude Stein, through literary executor Mr Stanford Gann, Jr of Levin & Gann, P.A., kindly granted permission to reproduce the extract from Gertrude Stein’s Narration: Lecture 4 (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1935).

The Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne, generously loaned a Torah scroll for display.

State Library Victoria acknowledges the copyright owners who have given their kind permission to reproduce material. The library continues in its endeavours to trace copyright owners, and some items have been reproduced here in good faith.

The library would be pleased to hear from copyright owners not yet contacted.

Thanks also to all contractors and past and present staff of State Library Victoria who have been involved in this project.