Pre-war Dustwrappers from Gavin de Lacy Rare & Secondhand Bookseller

Octavo, original red cloth with chipped Deco dustwrapper (bit distressed and with some old tape repairs). First edition. Novel set on the coast and cane-fields of northern Queensland.

Octavo, [4]pp. publisher's advertisements, very good in bright original green cloth with pictorial dustwrapper (few blemishes including a minor repair on verso of spine) priced at 6/-. First edition. Very scarce especially with dustwrapper. John Wallace was a Melbourne writer and publisher. He also wrote as 'Aintree', 'Texas Ranger', and 'Gerald Grantham', mostly publishing his novels under his own imprints Crime Book Publishing… Read more about this item

F'cap octavo, text a little toned but very good in bright original red cloth (slightly flecked) with pictorial dustwrapper (bit chipped). Small format 2/- reprint. 'Two parties went a-hunting sunken treasure on the coasts of Tasmania. In one was Peter Dale, young, innocent, out of a job; in the other, sweet Barbara. They met, and it was love at first sight— love… Read more about this item

Octavo, minor foxing on edges and preliminaries, bookseller's stamp on front free endpaper, very good in original green cloth with bright house style typographical dustwrapper (bit chipped). First edition.

Demy octavo, pale foxing on edges and preliminaries, very good in bright original red cloth with Roy Dalgarno pictorial dustwrapper. Reprint. First published by the Endeavour Press in May 1933, 1260 copies were sold by the end of June and second & third editions were printed in January and December 1934. The novel won the 1933 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. Very scarce… Read more about this item

Octavo, minor foxing on edges & preliminaries, bright original plum cloth with dustwrapper (sunned on spine). Ninth impression. Lennie Lower's classic comic Sydney novel ‒ reprinted numerous times during the 1930s and still in print: 'Dad and Stanley Gudgeon are left to batch while the ladies take a holiday; and a hectic time begins.' Nice copy in scarce period dustwrapper.

Octavo, 303pp., foxing on edges and endpapers, contemporary inscription on front free endpaper, bright original burgundy cloth with striking unsigned woodcut pictorial dustwrapper (bit chipped). First Australian edition ‒ printed in Sydney by Angus & Robertson's Halstead Press with its colophon. A. & R. sold the English edition (with stylised wave pattern dustwrapper) locally before and after this local edition of… Read more about this item

Crown octavo, [8]pp. publisher's advertisements, contemporary name in ink on front free endpaper, very good in original blue cloth with chipped pictorial dustwrapper (small patch of abrasion on upper panel) priced at 7/6 on spine. First edition. Novel set in the Northern Territory: 'When Martin Owen, a prospector, died, he left to his daughter Carol and to young Maurice Wynne, a… Read more about this item

Octavo, bright original burgundy cloth lettered in yellow with chipped Norman Lindsay pictorial dustwrapper. Well and truly out of print, this edition was the 'first of the Endeavour Press Australian Classic Reprints', selling about 800 copies in the first six months. Rejected by the a number of publishers, Jonah, Stone's Sydney larrikin novel, was first published by Methuen in 1911, but… Read more about this item

Octavo, original plain oatmeal buckram with 3/6 "Cheap Edition" pictorial dustwrapper (bit chipped and sunned on spine). Sixth impression (May 1930). First printing with the rare publisher's paper dustwrapper ‒ replacing the 'transmatic' (clear cellophane with attached printed paper flaps) dustwrapper issued with the earlier 1930 impressions. Manning's Great War novel was issued by the publisher Peter Davies in two editions ‒ in… Read more about this item

Octavo, original red cloth, gilt on spine, with striking scarlet & gold Adrian Feint dustwrapper (bit chipped &c.). First edition ‒ 2000 copies printed but only about 600 were sold before 'Inky'Stephensen's publishing company went into liquidation. A forgotten novel of the 1930s, but the subject of two interesting and engaging Sydney literary libel cases. Both author & publisher separately and successfully… Read more about this item

Octavo, frontispiece, 24 Percy Lindsay illustrations, map on endpapers, 4pp. publisher's advertisements, original orange cloth with chipped pictorial dustwrapper (minor old tape repairs on verso). First edition thus. First issue dustwrapper with fabulous (unsigned) Percy Lindsay art. First published as a novel by Angus & Robertson in 1927 under its Cornstalk imprint, re-issued here in Idriess's original non-fiction form with significantly different… Read more about this item

Octavo, pale offsetting on endpapers & foxing on edges, contemporary name on front free endpaper, very good in bright original black cloth lettered in red with Theyre Lee-Elliott Deco dustwrapper (slightly chipped). First edition. Scarce with dustwrapper. Howard's first novel, mostly set in Melbourne, including Trades Hall, but also Gippsland. From 1931 Howard mostly worked on the Melbourne Herald. (Longmans… Read more about this item

Octavo, bottom and fore edges uncut, very good in bright original brown cloth with pictorial dustwrapper (bit sunned on spine). US edition of Redheap. Third Printing in year of first publication. Redheap was banned in Australia in 1930, and Every Mother's Son was declared a prohibited import in the following year. The offending or suggestive passages identified include pp. 103-9, 244-7, 257-60,… Read more about this item

Octavo, very good in original bright berry cloth with (price-clipped) typographical dustwrapper (minor tape residue on verso & slightly sunned on spine). First edition. Very scarce. An extensive review in the Truth (Sydney) concluded: '"Miracles by Arrangement" should be treated by the censor in the same way as "Redheap." It must be banned. Better still if it could be banned overseas, where… Read more about this item

Octavo, cheap paper browning, original blue decorated cloth with bright pictorial dustwrapper (bit chipped on spine). Mellifont Press reprint with W.J. Roberts pulp dustwrapper art. Scarce in any edition.

Octavo, very good in original orange cloth with pictorial dustwrapper. First edition. An Australian 'Western' set in north-east Victoria. Scarce. John Wallace was a Melbourne publisher & writer.