Search Results: Authors starting with W from Hordern House Rare Books

London: printed and sold by John Faber, 1741. Mezzotint, 354 x 254 mm. (sheet size), recent paper backing, very good. An accomplished three-quarter length mezzotint portrait of Admiral Sir Charles Wager (1666-1743), widely regarded as the most skilled and capable naval commander of the his generation. Wager, by all accounts an astute and intelligent man, rose through the ranks to a position of wide reaching authority within the Admiralty. Wager began his training in the merchant service and later joined the Royal Navy. In 1707 he was entrusted with the West Indies command, and during his tenure the Spanish fleet carrying gold and silver from South America suffered considerable losses. Under Wager's command the navy destroyed the San Josef, sunk with 700 hands, and captured the rich prize Santa Cruz. Wager won fame and personal fortune from the expedition and spent many years ashore before returning to sea in 1726 in the conflict between Sweden and Russia. Wager's knowledge, affability and experience… Read More

Lisbon: Imprensa Lusitana Typographia Lisbonense, 1872-, 1873. A little rubbed, original interleaves generally present, a couple of plates spotted, but generally fine and bright.. Thick octavo, 153 highly-finished handcoloured engravings; red blind-panelled morocco, all edges gilt. Rare Portuguese edition of Wahlen's Moeurs, Usages et Costumes de tous les peuples du monde... (Brussels, 1844), published well after Wahlen's death in 1850. Wahlen's is a scarce and beautiful work on the costumes of the world, finely illustrated with a wonderful series of highly coloured full-page plates. This Portuguese edition is not recorded by Ferguson, although there are 30 plates of Oceania; it includes the Aborigines of Jervis Bay and Kangaroo Isladssdnd, and the exotic peoples of Pitcairn Island, New Guinea, Timor, Java, New Zealand and Hawaii. As with the earlier Brussels edition, the plates are drawn from published voyage accounts. The startling portraits of the Aborigines of Jervis Bay and Kangaroo Island are… Read More

Sydney: Thomas Richard, Government Printer, 1886. Fine.. Foolscap, 8pp. Detailed source document for Chinese Immigration into New South Wales between 1883 and 1886, with name of vessels, date of arrival and notes details of deserters, stowaways and those caught with false papers. .

Sydney: Thomas Richard, Government Printer, 1881. Slightly chipped.. Single foolscap sheet. Exchange of telegraphs between the Acting Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong and the Colonial Secretary of New South Wales concerning outbreak and quarantine of contagion: "Small-pox having been introduced here by Chinese recently arrived, this Government has by Proclamation notified that Hong Kong and all ports in China will be treated as places from which all vessels arriving in Sydney will be placed in quarantine." .

Sydney: Thomas Richards, 1867. Single foolscap sheet, disbound. Being a repeal of An Act to regulate and restrict the immigration of Chinese of November 1861. .

Sydney: Government printer 31 January, 1893. Single foolscap sheet, fine. Census list by nationality, including Indian subcontinent, Arabia, Asia Minor, Afghanistan etcetera. .

Sydney: By Order of the Council, 1835. Single foolscap sheet folded to docket size. A document giving the Governor of the day, Sir Richard Bourke permission from his majesty to pass a law legitimising land grants that do not bear the name of his Majesty or any of his predecessors. .

Sydney: N.S.W. Government Printer, 1897. Some wear and staining to canvas backing, very lightly cracked at one joint, overall in very good condition. Five-panel panoramic photograph, highlighted by hand, laid down on canvas, 390 x 3490 mm.; some wear and staining to canvas backing, very lightly cracked at one joint, but overall in very good condition. A rare very large panoramic photograph of the Royal Agricultural Show of 1897. The image is taken during the grand parade with the scoreboard in the background revealing details such as the fact that the Tattersalls Plate was due to be run at 2.30 pm, and the "Best Boy" rider to follow at 3. It is such extraordinary detail, displaying all of the activity and bustle of the show as well as the great splendour of the Moore Park grounds, that gives the image its real charm. In the background, for instance, the Cinematographe appears to be doing a good trade, while the hoardings and billboards are full of familiar names from the period, including Fry's… Read More

Sydney: Government Printer, 1859. Single foolscap sheet, fine. This sheet acknowledges receipt by Legislative Assembly of petition signed by 400 members of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce regarding the overly-harsh punishment of one Captain Johnson, master of the American vessel "Kate Hooper", and other merchants, relative to the confiscation of contraband opium. .

Sydney: Government printer, 1888. Single foolscap sheet, fine. Petition from Chinese merchants conducting business in Australia for exemption from Poll Tax during commercial visiting. .

Somerset, 1840. Original sepia watercolour with manuscript title in Wallis's hand, 167 x 368 mm, mounted. Inscribed lower right by James Wallis, "View of Culborne Church and Bristol Channel, Somersetshire". Wallis arrived in Sydney in February, 1814 in charge of the 46th Regiment which was to replace the 73rd. It was evident that he had a keen interest in art because after five years in Sydney and Newcastle he placed an advertisement in the Sydney Gazette, 9 January, 1819, for the sale of a "series of original views in New South Wales". This was a set of 13 printed views, engraved on copper by W. Preston. The imprints indicate that Wallis was responsible for the original drawings from which the engravings were taken. The Mitchell Library has the only extant examples of this Sydney printing. On his return to London in 1820, Wallis arranged a London edition of the views, in a bound volume, "Historical Account of the Colony of New South Wales" published by the well known London firm, Rudolf Ackermann.… Read More

London: Rudolph Ackermann, 1820. Very good; a small closed tear expertly repaired at upper blank margin very good.. Engraved view measuring 230 x 335mm. (plate size), early handcolouring. An early engraved view of Sydney Cove, itself the extraordinary outcome of the fruitful relationship between two convict engravers, Walter Preston and Joseph Lycett, and the artistically talented army officer Major James Wallis. This plate forms the frontispiece of Wallis' fine album of Australian views titled An Historical Account of the Colony of New South Wales published by Ackermann in London in 1821. The plate was engraved by the convict artist Walter Preston whose considerable talents came to the attention of Major Wallis, then commander of the convict settlement at Newcastle. At the time, Newcastle enjoyed a fearsome reputation for as a place for secondary punishment and was described by a contemporary officer as 'the Hell of New South Wales'. For many years the attribution of Wallis as the artist of the… Read More

London: Rudolph Ackermann, 1820. Very good; laid down on fine tissue, with small repaired tear.. Handcoloured engraving, 230 x 335 (plate size), mounted. Rare and attractive view of Vaucluse, from Wallis's Historical Account of the Colony,the first view book engraved in Australia. This work was an extraordinary collaboration between Major James Wallis, then commander of the convict settlement at Newcastle, and the convicts under his command, notably the artists Walter Preston and Joseph Lycett. Two of the central figures in the creation of the views were Preston and Lycett; Preston had earlier worked with Absalom West on his famous views of Sydney, while the latter had only recently been sent to Newcastle after his involvement in the forging of bank drafts in Sydney. At the time, Newcastle enjoyed a fearsome reputation for brutal secondary punishment and was described by Lieutenant Purcell as "the Hell of New South Wales." Wallis had arrived in the colony in 1814 and proved a successful commandant… Read More

London, 1791. Some slight soiling, but a very good copy.. Octavo; later half maroon morocco, with marbled sides. A tragedy about incest which suffered from more than the usual attention from pirateers. In the preface the author offered an apology for its appearance in public, claiming "it is solely to avoid its being rendered still worse by a surreptitious edition...He is sensible that the subject is disgusting, and by no means compensated by the execution". The first edition consisted of fifty copies privately distributed in 1768. Summers (A Gothic Bibliography) gives the first public edition as Dodsley, 1781, but this edition which was not published in a formal sense, but undertaken by Walpole to discourage a threatened unauthorized printing. This was followed by a second edition in 1789. There was a pirated Dublin edition of 1790, reissued in 1791. .

London: John Scott, 1806. An excellent set.. Five volumes, octavo; with 149 engraved portrait plates; contemporary binding of dark green straight grain morocco, ornately gilt; armorial bookplates. A very attractive set of this major literary work by Walpole: although his literary reputation rests principally upon his voluminous correspondence, he also produced a number of substantial books, including this with its useful collection of biographical accounts and engraved portraits. As a carefully researched and honest assessment of the literary contributions of a significant number of lesser-known writers (figures whose rank in society was generally greater than their reputations and abilities as authors), the work is of particular value. The set offered here is a appealing example of a decorated binding from the early nineteenth century. .

London: Nattali and Bond, 1860. Minor foxing but a very good copy.. Two volumes, large and heavy octavo, 14 fine engraved plates, with many additional textual engravings; in a beautiful contemporary binding of half brown morocco over marbled boards, top edges gilt, cloth slipcase. This very handsome edition of the angling classic is the second Nicolas edition, reprinted from Harris Nicolas's Pickering edition of 1836, which is considered one of the most beautiful and thorough fishing books ever published. This version is richly illustrated with a total of 61 plates and vignettes, after Stothard, Inskipp, and Hassell. The text is taken from the fifth edition of the Compleat Angler of 1676, which was the last revised by Walton, but it also footnotes the text of all four earlier editions. Also included are thorough memoirs and notes of both Walton and Cotton. .

London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co, 1893. Tall octavo, frontispiece and four maps, numerous plates and illustrations, bookplate, early owner's name on endpaper; a fine copy in original blue cloth, gilt, very light bumping at extremities of spine. First edition of the author's only book. A lengthy, sometimes self-aggrandizing, attempt to justify the displacement of the "Kanakas" to work in the plantations of Northern Queensland, on the grounds that they were a "class of labourers better able to endure the climate than Europeans, as well as to work at a cheaper rate". Wawn had been involved in the trade since its inception in 1875, after five years trading, salvaging and beach-combing among the islands of the western Pacific. Here, Wawn is complacent about the implications of the trade, as can be seen in his incendiary dedication to the pioneers and sugar-planters of Queensland, "Basely Betrayed, and Unscrupulously Sacrificed to the Greed of the Political Place-hunter and the Howling Ignorance which… Read More

Paris: chez Isabey, 1785. Fine.. Engraving, 300 x 220 mm (image size), early proof plate without caption, mounted. A fine early proof copy of the French version of Webber's famous image, before the caption has been added. The general tone is very light; in later finished forms the print will appear darker. This version is quite striking. The French edition of the official account of Cook's third voyage did not include an image of his death, although some copies did include an added 'Mort de Cook' plate. Nonetheless, as in England, there was tremendous interest in Webber's scene, and this accomplished engraving was issued by Claude-Mathieu Fessard, a prominent French engraver and book artist. This interim proof does not have any imprint details, but Joppien & Smith confirm that the finished print was sold by Isabey, in the rue de Gesvre, Paris. The final print, as published, would include a brief biography of Cook and description of his death engraved below the image as a caption (the print itself… Read More

[Paris]: [chez Isabey], n.d., 1785. Some browning, but fine and mounted, evidently disbound at some point, with fragments of old thick paper bordering the edges on the reverse.. Engraving, 300 x 220 mm (image size), "Fessard" and "Webber" present as faint scratch signatures. A further near-final proof of the French version before the complete caption has been added and with names in scratch proof form only. A similar proof issue is held in the Bibliothèque Nationale. The official account of Cook's third voyage did not include an image of his death, although some copies did include an added 'Mort de Cook' plate. Nonetheless, as in England, there was tremendous interest in Webber's scene, and this accomplished engraving was issued by Claude-Mathieu Fessard, a prominent French engraver and book artist. This interim proof does not have any imprint details, but Joppien & Smith confirm that the finished print was sold by Isabey, in the rue de Gèvre, Paris. The final print, as published, included a brief… Read More

London: Hurst and Blackett, 1865. The first frontispiece neatly repaired along gutter-edge. Fine condition.. Two volumes, thick octavo, two engraved portrait frontispieces, double-page pair of chromolithograph plates of borders, numerous wood engravings in the text; ALS from Josiah Wedgwood II (son of Josiah Wedgwood) attached to verso of frontispiece in first volume; in striking three-quarter red morocco gilt. A fascinating and comprehensive work on the life of Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) who established the grand firm which carries his name, and who is of particular Australian interest as the creator of the Sydney Cove Medallion. An investigation into the nature of the clay of the Sydney basin had been one of the first requests given to Governor Phillip, and he sent home a series of specimens to Sir Joseph Banks as soon as he was able. Banks was a close associate of Josiah Wedgwood, and some of the clay was immediately dispatched in order to create the Medallion. The medallion was designed by… Read More