Antiquities & Oddities

//Antiquities & Oddities
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  • 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.  
  • 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.
  • 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...
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.