Antiquities & Oddities

//Antiquities & Oddities
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  • An essential guide to Australian rhyming slang drawn from oral sources in and around Sydney. Three of the author's best informants were mates who'd spent some time as guests of Her Majesty in Sydney's Long Bay Jail. Two other prolific sources were a couple of retired shearers. Great as a social document or just for fun - or even as a gift to a 'New Australian'   so they know the meaning of such phrases as He did a Harold Holt (bolted, vanished); Here comes the John Hops/Johns (cops, the police); I'm on me Pat Malone; I'm alone; The saucepan lids are home on holidays - The kids are home on holidays plus many more.
  • A spirited and internationally acclaimed play set in the 1930s during the Great Depression. It tells the story of an Aboriginal family, the Millimurras. who removed from their home and forced to work on the Moore River Native Settlement.  The Millimurra family take a stand against the Government's 'protection' of 1930s Australia - the Chief Protector, A.O. Neville believed at that time that 'the native must be helped in spite of himself.'  Published in 1986, academics consider it an effort to validate the importance of Aboriginal culture, while also communicating the feelings of isolation when people cannot understand their own language and cultural customs. It  received the Australian Writers Guild Award (AWGIE) for best stage play.
  • Cooper, Australia's first acknowledged playwright, lived a full life:  Actor, journalist, politician, a bankrupt who once fought a duel in Sydney with his brother in law.  He wrote popular farces, comedies and sensation dramas and was the first Australian playwright to have his work produced overseas.  Colonial Experience is one of only two plays which survive.  Contains a wealth of information about Cooper and the entire play text.
  • There was just the three of them now that Father had died:  Mother, Jane and Jeremy.  They had left their Tasmanian home to drive across the Nullabor to Lantern Light, the remote homestead of Uncle Bill, Jane's only relative. For Jane was adopted and although she had been very happy with her foster family, the prospect of meeting her relative made every dusty mile worth it.  But Uncle Bill in the flesh - and Lantern Light were both very different to Jane's dreams of a family and home. This is not a only a children's or young adults story; the reader also gets the perspective of events from the adults - Uncle Bill, his friend Andrew, Mother and Eve Burton, the schoolteacher at Lantern Light.  A story for anyone.
  • The principal characters in the story are Doris Brunton and Andy with other characters existing mainly for contrast. There is no sickly sentimentalism, the love and romance being concerned with the hero's battle against harsh reality. Set in the sheep country of New South Wales and Queensland with distinctive characterisations and the eternal atmosphere of the Australian bush.
  • Written in 1913, this hefty novel commences:  "I was an unwanted child - unwanted as a girl at all events.  Father Dan Donovan, our parish priest, has told me all about it.  I was born in October.  It had been raining heavily all day long.  The rain was beating hard against the front of our house and running in rivers down the window panes.  Towards four in the afternoon the wind rose and then the yellow leaves of the chestnuts in the long drive rustled noisily, and the sea, which is a mile away, moaned like a dog in pain." Mary O'Neill, unwanted by her wealthy father for not being a boy, is married off to an impoverished - yet titled - man. Mary is determined to try and love her husband - she may yet please her father - but then she meets a real gentleman, in every sense of the word, and is torn between her true feelings, duty and her marriage vows.
  • Rhubarb is a big cat who can lick the hell out of any dog that ever lived.  His owner, eccentric dog-hating millionaire Thad Banner loves Rhubarb more than his 'hep-cat' daughter and in his will, he leaves Rhubarb his fortune and his big-league Baseball club, the New York Loons.  And THAT'S where the trouble really begins! With fabulously funny illustrations by Leo Hershfield.
  • First publication for 1954. Stories in this volume: The House Down The Lane, Joan Pepper (Joan Alexander); Conscience, Burgess Drake (author of Chinese White and Hush-A-Bye Baby) The Case Of The China Dogs, Guthram Walsh; Susan And The Elder, Jeffrey Jones; Murder In High Places, Alister Kershaw (Murder In France; Village to Village; Hey Days); Suffer A Witch, Peter Shaffer (Sir Peter Shaffer, Equus); The Water Beast, E.G. Ashton; Escape to Fear, Claire Pollexfen (Plunderer's Harvest, Call of the Horizon) Cardillo's Shadow, Sydney J. Bounds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney James Bounds ; The Artist, Jonathan Scribe;  The Cave, F. McDermott; The Green Tiger, Rett Sinclair; The Tancarrow Treasure, George Milner (real name 3rd Baron Hardinge of Penshurst).  There is also a section of reviews on new detective/crime fiction, including one for Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye.
  • Gracie Fields was well known as a music hall star, singer/comedienne and actress of the 1930s and was voted most popular box office actress in 1937.  She was particularly famous for her comedic songs. In this compendium of childrens' stories from the 1950s: Viking Proves Himself, Geoffrey Proust; Good Dog, Tinker! Enid Blyton; Nature Ramble - Spring By Pond And River, Hedgerow Joe; The Saint Piran's Gold, Captain Lawson Smith; The Black Tarn Mystery, Errol Collins; A First-Class Brownie, D.E. Booth; Nature Ramble - Summer To The Sea, Hedgerow Joe; Dreams Go By Contraries, Gunby Hadath; A Piece Of Rope, Edyth Harper; Police Message! T. Holloway; The House Of Candlelight, Robin Rover; Our Dogs, Robert Harding; Nature Ramble - Autumn And Winter, Hedgerow Joe; A Headmaster's Ethics and Channel Conquerors, Robert Harding; In Search Of A Book, Selwyn Gummer. With an introduction by Gracie Fields.
  • A story of sibling devotion told from The Mill On The Floss. This excerpt of Tom and Maggie's early years was first published as a stand-alone in 1909. Little Maggie worships Tom and wants his approval - but Tom is unpredictable; sometimes he acts as if he loves Maggie and other times he is very unpleasant to her. Tom is sent to school to get a proper education and Maggie misses him greatly.  But when his school days are done, Tom may have learnt to love his studies; he has made a very good friend; and Maggie is becoming a young lady.
  • A family is curious about a legend surrounding a string of beads, handed down from Great-grandfather. Kept in a horn snuff-box with a clue - or a riddle -

    Our mystical meaning a secret shall be: Here's a key for a lock, find a key for the key.

    They must be kept in the house as long as the house remains in the family - and this was stated clearly in Great Grandfather's will. It was believed, once, that the string of beads - being a variety of colours - might be a form of cipher or code that contained a hidden message. But none yet have cracked the code...
  • There would appear to be two editions of this book; the other is published as The Havesome Book of Nutty Records. The Daffodil edition seems to be much rarer and is probably a joke reference to Daffodil brand Peanuts and Peanut Butter.  Contains such fun as phone box and lavatory cramming, wheelbarrow races, underwater records, coin balancing, competitive shovelling, non-stop jiving, distance for pushing a peanut with the nose and a great many more 'nutty' record-breaking attempts.
  • Set in the immediate post Civil War period, two boys, mustered out of the U.S. Military in 1865,  construct a singular craft and make a perilous voyage down the mighty Missouri River from Fort Benton to St. Louis.  
  • Before the Darwin Awards, there was Ripley's world of fascinating facts about risks, breaks, quirks, freaks and miracles. Such as... Minnie Gawell, who, in drawing a raffle, picked her own numbers four times in succession; if Bram Stoker had not eaten crab for his dinner (which gave him awful nightmares) the world would never have had Frankenstein; and the refugees from floods in Pakistan who received a supply of brassieres. Over 300 pages of the very weird but very true. With illustrations and photographs.
  • Quite a rollicking tale of corrupt soldiers and starving convicts, set in a South Pacific penal colony in 1790.  Into this alien world comes Corporal Phelim Halloran: Innocent and lover, poet and scholar and soldier-by-accident who attempts to make a world for himself in this non-conducive setting. First published in 1967.
  • Sub-title: How To Live in Australia - And Like It. This is actually one of those books that tells you what's right about Australia. Kit Denton, author of  The Breaker and father of television's Andrew Denton, came to Australia in the late 1940s and worked as a gold miner, an itinerant worker, a radio and television interviewer. he covers his mining days, the old ABC television studios in Perth, landladies, characters such as Captain Sundial and Uncle Charlie, his search for the Big Bronzed Anzac Hero and so many other wonderful memories. His last book.
  • The plays of Noel 'The Master' Coward still draw audiences today.  This is a compilation of the Mermaid Theatre's Cowardy Custard which brought together the best of Noel Coward, as well as some of his less well-known songs and poems.  Beautifully illustrated with colour and black and white drawings and photos.
  • Set in an orphanage founded by an archbishop, the story opens on the No 14 bus trundling through London.  The reader is given the background on most of the bus passengers -  shadowy figures that play but a brief role - save one. A young woman who leaves the bus and disappears into the fog to the orphanage where she leaves a warmly wrapped baby on the doorstep. She kisses the child and leaves and all that is left is this new born child with a label attached to the shawl saying "Sweetie". And so Sweetie's life in St Mark's Orphanage begins.  It is not a harsh, Dickensian place - the children are well cared for and it is run by Canon Mallow, sweet-natured, kind and slightly inept. He loves all the children but he is soon to retire and his place is taken by a new appointee, Dr Samuel Trump who is determined that St Mark's will be run efficiently - on proper lines - and he is appalled at the inefficiency and disorganisation he sees before him.  Sweetie and Ginger, a real holy terror, strike up a friendship. Ginger is always up to all sorts of mischief and tricks who even manages to climb over the wall at night and go 'up West' on forays into the big wide world.   He is the bane of Dr Trump's life as no amount of punishment or detentions seem to have any effect on him whatsoever and Sweetie, who has an adventurous streak in her as well, causes a lot of upset for the new Warden.  https://cosmiccauldronbooks.com.au/p/london-belongs-to-me-norman-collins-2/
  • This book contains the sort of things one might expect to come up on QI...Such as... the worst computer ever invented, the shortest-lived newspaper, the least successful round the world cyclist and the shortest period of marital bliss. Great fun to dip into at random.
  • The sequel to The Broad Highway. This is the story of the fiery Charmian's love for her husband and reckless son - and the passion her beauty arouses in two ruthless men. Charmian, now in her forties and a great deal more wary and wise, is still a great beauty and not afraid to gamble life and honor in a sinister and perilous game. While in Paris, young Richard Vibart, son of Sir Peter and Lady Charmian, receives a challenge from Henri Willoughby-Gafton, a famous duelist whom Richard has slapped for speaking lightly of Lady Charmian. When Sir Peter hears of it he hurries to Paris, while Charmian - with a plan of her own - follows secretly. But is  Henri Willoughby-Gafton the real villain? Mr. Bob Meadows, the valet from The Broad Highway also makes a reappearance. Set during the Regency.

  • This was originally written in 1928 as a play by the famous actress. It was considered so raunchy it was shut down by the censors before it appeared. The story is set backstage in vaudeville and dramatises the career of handsome headliner of Rodney Terrill, whose wild sex affairs with women lead to an unexpected - but probably well deserved - ending. A very 'ripping yarn' full of sauce with a very unexpected ending.

  • A tale set in the reign of Charles II - kings and princes, cavaliers and courtesans, flashing blades and raking shot from tall ships. There are plots and counter-plots simmering under the glittering mask of court life and all Englishmen see a deadly threat in the ambitions of Louis XIV pf France. First published as Whitehall in 1931.
  • A story of a German spy in the Great War.
  • Fields was the kind of an actor that only comes along once in several lifetimes - a comic genius and an original anti-hero, cantankerous, pompous and ribald.  Here he lays out his proposed presidential campaign with biting wit: his views on politics, big business, marriage, babies, physical fitness and alcohol. A classic Fields comment: when asked if he liked children he replied, "Yes - but only if they're properly cooked." This is vintage Fields and his only book.

  • Never again will you be short of a good tale at a dinner party. Amuse your friends, embarrass your maiden aunt and shock your stockbroker with stories of the inept, the improbable and the downright impossible. Read about the sanctuary for alcoholic donkeys; the would-be mugger who was rendered unconscious by an octogenarian armed with an onion (and who subsequently ate the evidence for lunch); the battle between a mother and son over the division of a lottery prize; the thief who stole skimpy ladies' clothing from washing lines in the belief he was protecting them from baring too much flesh -   and many other true and bizarre stories.
  • Everything you thought you knew is wrong!  Such as..Henry VIII did NOT have six wives; Everest is NOT the world's tallest mountain; ALexander Graham Bell did NOT invent the telephone; and Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries are NOT berries. Great potential for trivia nights.