Antiquities & Oddities

//Antiquities & Oddities
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  • Frances is sent from her small Welsh village and warm, loving family to Maidenhurst School for Girls for education and a little smoothing out of her tomboy edges. There she makes friends, unwittingly makes enemies, has plenty of adventures, gets into trouble and develops 'crushes' on teachers and older girls in the school.  She also teaches some of her school mates the meaning of 'honour' and courage. Written in 1925, the word 'love' as used by Frances and other characters when referring to teachers or older girls simply means a wish to emulate or intense admiration, being a common expression of the time.
  • It's Operation Panic ! - and it's driving the whole camp crazy...but that's only the beginning of a series of madcap manoeuvres at Fourteenth Division headquarters.. On the Home Front the lurks and larks of these irrepresible Diggers keep them one step ahead of the provosts and when they're finally transferred to New Guinea, the enemy just don't stand a chance in this Battle of Wits.   A riotous account of Aussie Army tactics.
  • Lietenant Garrett Byrne has just recently been promoted to take command of a squad of black soldiers. Irish-born and no-nonsense, he clashes frequently with his second-in-command, and struggles with his feelings over being placed in charge of such a squad. His troop is assigned the duty of guiding and protecting a band of reservation Comanches who want to hunt buffalo. Along the way, they encounter hide hunters, a white homestead family with a mother and two small children, and a band of Indian-hunting Texas Rangers. It's a volatile mix was the journey becomes a grim tale of chase and survival amid racial hatred and violence.

  • Book XX of  Doctor series. From the author of the practically-infamous Doctor series of books, film and television comes a brilliant solution to the bunglings of the National Health Service: The Lady With The Lamp.  The legendary Florence Nightingale returns to Earth, determined to reorganise the NHS, as she memorably reorganised the medical chaos of the Crimean War. And more:  the late Sir Lancelot Spratt also returns to stop the NHS closing his beloved St. Swithin's Hospital.  He's not having it. The combined effect of these ghostly visitations is that of a UFO landing on the Ministry of Health. Meanwhile, the wild Professor Whapshott is recreating the human race with his gene-loaded mega-mosquitoes...
  • Subtitled Being a Series of Bouquets Diffidently Distributed. Nichols interviews the luminaries of his day from the world of art, literature and music.  Each chapter describes his interview or friendship and leaves an outline, an impression, of his subject: Noel Coward; Arthur Conan Doyle; George Gershwin; Eugene Goossens; W. Somerset Maugham; Dame Nellie Melba; Aldous Huxley; H.G. Wells - and more - and... were they the same when at home?
  • Hudson explores the forces responsible for bringing about the Renaissance, which he describes as...the West's transition from the medieval to the modern world. Voyages of discovery, inventions, the revival of classical learning and the advent of science contribute to the intellectual upheavals of this creative period which are reflected in its literature and art. Hudson focuses on the one thread of continuity which he sees as both the seed and the fruit of this exciting era: the awakening of secular humanism and the emergence of the individual.  Chapters: The Renaissance In General; The Age Of Invention And Discovery; The Revival Of Learning; The Renaissance In Religion: The Reformation; Science And Philosophy;  Art, Literature And Education. Illustrated.
  • A Gothic coming-of-age story that takes place in Sussex County and follows a young boy with an interest in mischief, exploration, and boxing. Rodney Stone and his best friend, Jim Harrison have always been drawn to dark and dangerous places. When they wander into Cliffe Royale, an old, deserted mansion that was the scene of a gruesome murder fifteen years earlier, they’re both frightened and strangely excited to cross paths with a ghostly figure. Before they can identify who the ghost is and what it wants, Rodney’s wealthy uncle, Sir Charles Tregellis, arrives in Brighton and takes Rodney away. Rodney soon learns that Tregellis, a typical dandy, is connected to just about everyone in London and has focused his attention on an upcoming boxing match to be witnessed by thirty thousand spectators. If Tregellis’s unnamed challenger wins the fight, it could mean grave trouble for Tregellis and everyone he’s associated with - including Rodney. Distracted by the upcoming fight, Rodney almost forgets about the chilling discovery he made at Cliffe Royale with Jim - until the past comes back to haunt them all. A story with twists, turns and the famous and infamous from history - an unforgettable portrait of what life was like for both the common man and the social elite in the early 19th Century.
  • This novel spans 130 years and follows the line of women of the Wrotham family, beginning with Sabrina in 1806. The daughter of a socially disgraced, sadistic roué, she is sponsored into 'Society' by her step-aunt - after having had some good manners vigorously instilled in her and her tomboyish ways smoothed out. Her brother Prior's marriage and production of children play a part in keeping the Wrotham name going. The next Wrotham woman is Clare - her brother Anthony's marriage to Harriet brings Charlotte to the line and the last is Gillian Rose, known as 'Jill'. The diaries and letters of the women are fictitious but the times in which the story is set are not, and many historical characters and events of England are brought to the story. As the generations overlap, with the members of each generation subscribing to the beliefs of their day, there is little sentimental romance involved - just a very good story, tinted with gentle romance and enhanced by the backdrop of historic reality.
  • A teaser of  the upcoming movie attractions of 1957, with interviews and photos of the great and sadly, some now forgotten as well as details of the films in production. There's on-set candid shots as well as glamour pics, with plenty for the vintage film enthusiast: Jack Lemmon, John Wayne; Jean Simmons, Marilyn Monroe, Joan Collins, Doris Day, a young Benny Hill and many more. Film previews include The Battle Of The River Plate, The Spirit Of St. Louis, Giant, Kismet and more. Illustrated with numerous colour and black and white photographs.
  • Or...£500 for a second hand car. A humorous study of the trades and professions that make London tick. Here is cheerful, factual reporting on how the people who clip the publics train tickets or weigh their bananas think, talk, feel and swear about their business. Here are car salesmen, the Billingsgate Bobbin Boys, street-corner news vendors, cab drivers, musicians, Palace guardsmen and others who have added colour and spice to London life.
  • Honouring those who continue to improve our gene pool by removing themselves in sublimely idiotic ways, such as: the woman caught in an American national park, smearing honey all over her small son's face so she could get a photo of a bear licking it off; the man who decided to add a plastic bag to his collection of solo sex toys, and who was found with the plastic bag over his head, the vacuum cleaner still running and himself being very very dead; and the two allegedly experienced twenty-something construction workers who fell to their deaths after cutting a circle in a thick concrete floor without realising they were standing in the middle of the circle. All this and much much more! Also includes sections on honorable mentions and debunks.

  • It is December of 1944, and a detachment of American soldiers has been assigned to guard an ancient castle in Belgium inhabited by an elderly aristocrat, his young wife, and countless valuable artifacts. The soldiers virtually wait out the war - indulging in various hobbies, exploring the castle's excesses (including a replica of Venice, complete with canals and gondolas), in other words, trying to do something other than war - until a German counterattack puts them in the fray!
  • Mr. T. Wallace Wooly, a self-important tycoon, but at heart a shy man, meets his future bride when he rescues her from a hotel fire. Usually this would pose unique challenges to a couple just getting acquainted, but it probably helped that the future Mrs. Wooly was completely naked at the time. Mr. Wooly is the most public, most consequential man in town and respectable - so the well-publicized rescue of the nude Miss Broome thrown over Mr.Wooly's shoulder as he rushes from the burning building sets tongues wagging. Mr. Wooly is aghast at the rumors, but Miss Broome is after all, bewitching, and Mr. Wooly is soon under the spell of her red lips, lustrous black hair, and slanting yellow eyes. It isn't long after their marriage that Mr. Wooly begins to question the wisdom of their hasty union when he sees his new wife climbing down the trumpet vine outside their bedroom window, riding the goat through the apple orchard in the moonlight and killing chickens. Among other things. The Passionate Witch was initially drafted as a film scenario, but later completed as a novel by Norman Matson after Thorne Smith's death in 1934 and is alleged to have been the inspiration for the hit television show Bewitched.  Illustrated by Herbert Roese.
  • A stirring story of adventure in the wilds of North America. Ellis was a prolific author and it is believed he wrote over 200 novels in the adventure genre, as well as any number of short stories and articles for Boys Own type publications.
  • Those of us of a certain age will remember the Ladybird children's book series which, through use of simple vocabulary and images, informed children of the world around them and how it worked. Like everything else, the Ladybird books underwent a political correctness change but are still in print. However, this offering is for grown-ups...This delightful book is the latest in the series of Ladybird books which have been specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them.The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope.  This entry in the series informs grown-ups how to plan and execute the perfect 'sickie'.  
  • A young woman finds herself pregnant 'on the wrong side of the blanket' in 1961. The attitude to single mothers was very different then; her father kicks her out of their home and she moves into a dingy rooming house. Against her will she becomes involved with the characters who live there, some of them who are outcasts in their own way - Toby, the budding Jewish writer; John, the huge, gentle Negro musician and Mavis, the old dear living in a room stuffed full of souvenirs of a theatrical past. When she decides that she will keep her baby rather than offer him for adoption or have an abortion - highly illegal then - she begins to receive unexpected help from this odd assortment as well as her boss, an eccentric in his own right. A very well told story.

  • Of all the rough frontier towns that stretched in a ragged line along the eastern bank of the Missouri, Council Bluffs seemed most alive with the robust spirit of the time. There the crowd was most motley; there the leaping pulse could best be felt; there was the very vortex of the mad maelstrom of passionate hope, desire, and purpose.   An American frontier story about the settling of Nebraska in 1854.
  • This is no ordinary 'Guide to Italy' - this is a collection of charming legends, tales and anecdotes created by the author and inspired by  the regions of Italy.  Naples - The Castle That Came Out Of An Egg; Sorrento, Almalfi, Pompeii - The Dog Of Pompeii; Ravello, Salerno, Paestum - The Temple Boy; The Hill Towns - Orvieto, Prugia, Assissi - The Donkey Of God; Gubbio, San Gimignano, Siena - The Horse of Siena; Florence - The Painted Death; Venice - Daughter of the Lion; and Rome - The Holy Cross. Some of the tales are little-known legends, combining history with mystery. The longer stories are pure inventions whose outcome are the observations and experiences of an alert and sensitive traveler. But they are more than that. They are the creations of a poet whose imagination is enriched by humor. With 63 fabulous woodcuts.
  • The sequel to Beau Geste: the ripping adventures of Major Henri de Beaujolais from adolescence to maturity as a well-connected cavalry officer in the French Army: he's an Old Etonian; his mother a Devonshire Cary; his deceased father a Frenchman; his paternal uncle the youngest General in the French Army and married to the sister of the French Minister of State for War. Starting as a one-year volunteer trooper in a hussar regiment, De Beaujolais graduates from the Cavalry School of Saumur to become an officer of Spahis and a member of the French Secret Service.  The Major faces the struggle between love for his country and the love of a woman. Highly romantic - but it was published in 1926! Regarded as the 'French' novel of the Beau series with Beau Geste as the English novel and Beau Ideal as the American novel.
  • A dashing tale of Prince Charles Edward, the Pretender when he returns to France weary and heartbroken  after the failure of '45. He is frustrated at every turn, invoved with love and intrigues and forced to wander through Europe on the hopeless quest for help to begin a new rising in order to regain his throne.  This was Boileau's final book;  she died before completing it and it was subsequently finished by Baxter Ellis.
  • A very educational annual circa 1940s with chapters on Heroes of the Bible; Heroes of Legend; Heroes of History; Heroes of the Arts; Heroes of Leadership and Service; Heroes of the Second World War.  With beautiful colour plates, monochrome and black and white illustrations.
  • Written in 1953 and set 30 years in the future, there is an inner story and an outer story: the first crowded with the great figures of the British empire and the second set in the wilds of Queensland during the rains from November to April when a strange adventure takes place. Great Britain is still great - its people determined, tenacious and disciplined. A young airman and the girl he loves find themselves at the very hub of the affairs of Empire during the course of a very astonishing Constitutional crisis.
  • Bruce, the son of the busy Dr Henshaw and a doting mother, is pretty used to doing just as he likes.  But Bruce also has an older sister who is not quite so charmed by him. Bruce doesn't realise the value of money, has no respect for the property of others, is too lazy to apply himself to school and always seems to talk his way out of the mischief he gets into so effortlessly. But when he 'borrows' a motor car belonging to City merchant Mr. Ferguson, almost has an accident and the bewildered merchant gets a summons to appear in court for reckless driving, Bruce's father knows the time has come to teach his charming lad a sharp lesson in reality. He also needs to learn that driving recklessly in a 'borrowed' motor is NOT a 'lark'.  The railway line near Boonderong in Queensland is being extended and Dr. Henshaw's friend Mr. Langdon is in charge of the work camp there. And this is where Bruce is sent - to work, to learn the value of what he earns and to respect that which does not belong to him... and he has to learn it the hard way.
  • A cult classic, based on an actual murder case. Theresa Dunn, a convent-educated school teacher with a respectable family and a decent fiance haunts the singles bars of New York.  She arrives alone, but picks up a take-home man against the long, dark, lonely night. seeking to fill the emptiness within, and always failing. Then she begins to call in sick at school. spending her days with her pick-ups. As Theresa's life starts to spin out of control she meets the wrong man on the wrong night at the wrong bar....A cult classic, based on an actual murder case.
  • Described as romance shorts - with definite twists and turns in every tale - this volume contains: The Odds/Without Prejudice: A young woman, without realising it, meets a man on the run from the law. Sparks fly but he must keep running. Time passes...she gets engaged to a law man. What happens when the woman and the convict meet again? Her Own Free  : An impetuous girl agrees to marry a Boer millionaire for his money. After an accident which keeps the couple separated for a year, she's not so sure that she wants to be married...The Consolation Prize:  A young woman, in love with a local farmer, agrees to marry an eccentric lord to save her family from poverty. But rather than two lives being ruined by sacrifice, her sister proposes a shocking solution.  Her Freedom:   A free-spirited girl calls off her engagement - not in the usual way, but by an announcement in the Society columns. her soon-to-be former fiance responds by posting the wedding date in the same column. She then meets a wild, bushy bearded Canadian man and rather than allow her mischievous cousin Dick to polish off the Canadian's rough edges, she thinks he will 'do' just as he is. Is this true love? Or infatuation? Death's Property:  A wealthy man, disillusioned  man returns to the seaside village of his birth, disgusted at the world and himself for having served the 'God of Gold' for 20 years in America. Irritated by a shrill American accent, he finds the voice belongs to a real beauty. But according to her cousin, she is 'untouchable...' The Sacrifice:  When a young Society girl's admirer is falsely accused of forgery, she will do anything to clear his name...she will even submit to blackmail...
  • Features four stories: Death In Texas, Brett Halliday; Four Knights, Gerry Maddren; Deadly Queen, Brett Halliday; Motorcycle, William Babula. Federal Publishing Company Pty Limited, Waterloo, undated, but probably circa 1982.
  • Dr. Stephen McCabe has a partnership in a fashionable practice in Sydney and a very beautiful, very ambitious fianceè and when he comes to the lonely Flying Doctor outpost of Winnemincka, he only intends staying for a short holiday. Yet he is aware that his true vocation is escaping him and that feeling becomes more acute when an old friend of his father comes from the Outback to visit him. The discovery that many lonely people desperately need him takes him out of his comfortable rut and presents him with a challenge and he must face the greatest personal problem of his life with a completely new set of values.