Antiquities & Oddities

//Antiquities & Oddities
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  • The first edition of this book came out in 1928, and as a result of 'much correspondence' and further research, the author released this updated edition in 1944. Contents in this volume: The Devil's Hoofmarks: A series of strange footmarks in the snow appeared in Devonshire in 1855; The Vault At Barbados - also known as the moving coffins of Barbados; The Ships Seen On The Ice: Ships from a polar expedition believed lost in 1845 are spotted years later; The Berbalangs of Cagyan Sulu: Tales of zombies in the Philippines in 1896; Orffyreus' Wheel: Did  Orffyreus invent a perpetual motion machine in 1717? Crosse's Acari: A new species of insects allegedly created by the reanimation of dead matter; The Auroras And Other Doubtful Islands: Islands that had been recognised and charted for centuries - yet they don't exist...; Mersenne's Numbers: Marin Mersenne, a French Minim friar, gave his name to Mersenne primes in the 17th century - prime numbers that are one less than a power of two;  The Wizard of Mauritius: In the late 1700s Bottineau could predict, with accuracy, which ships would soon be arriving; The Planet Vulcan: Is there another planet between Mercury and the Sun? Nostradamus: The French scholar and mystic predicted a great many things that came true yet sceptics will point at those which haven't come true - to which the the believers retort, 'Yet...' Having written his quatrains in a mix of Latin, Greek, French with a touch of English tossed in. It being entirely possible that the quatrains were torn in half by Nostradamus so that the first two lines may have little to do with the last two, the world has not yet heard the last of him. While at least one of these 'Oddities' has now been solved - the moving coffins of Barbados - the others remain unexplained to this day. With photographs and sketches.
  • The classic children's fantasy adventure that was first published in 1863. Tom, a poor orphan, is employed by the villainous chimney-sweep, Grimes, to climb up inside flues to clear away the soot. While engaged in this dreadful task, he loses his way and emerges in the bedroom of Ellie, the young daughter of the house who mistakes him for a thief. He runs away, and, hot and bothered, he slips into a cooling stream, falls fast asleep, and becomes a water baby.  In this new life, he meets all sorts of aquatic creatures, including an engaging old lobster, other water babies, and at last reaches St Branden's Isle where he encounters the fierce Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid and the motherly Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby.  After a long and arduous quest to the Other-End-Of-Nowhere, Tom achieves his heart's desire. Illustrated by Harry G. Theaker.
  • Thomas Stanley Hepworth (1916 - 1985) was a teacher, author and editor, responsible for the Australian Children's Newspaper, The ABC Children's Hour Annual Nos. 1–5 (1956–58, 1960–61), and The Australian Children's Annual Nos 6–8 (1963–65). There is plenty to amuse and educate in this thoughtfully-produced annual: stories, plays, information on how things were manufactured, hobbies and other countries; songs; riddles; crosswords and handicrafts. Contributors to this edition include Ruth Park, Rowena Farre, Denys Burrows, G.K. Saunders and 'The Argonauts'.  In a day of limited television, these annuals were regarded as very instructive for young people. Illustrated with cartoons and black and white photographs of events in Australia and overseas.
  • Humorous Australian poetry, often satirising news events of the day:  Down To Earth lampoons Professor Auguste Piccard's prediction of future space journeys to distant solar systems lasting thousands of years and from which it would be possible to return without aging.  All manner of everyday life events are in the sights of Foster's gun, from the culinary arts to modern sculpture, with a few sly digs at political notables from the Cold War Era. With amusing black and white illustrations by Emeric.

  • Subtitle:  A dictionary of things that there aren't any words for yet!  Such as... Clabby (adj.): A conversation struck up by a cleaning lady or commissionaire in order to avoid further work.  The opening gambit is meant to provoke the maximum confusion and the longest clabby conversation.  Or...Lowther (vb) To stand aimlessly about on the footpath after coming out of the cinema and argue about whether to go and eat a Chinese meal nearby or an Indian meal at a restaurant which someone says is very good but isn't certain where it is or just go home; or to have the Chinese meal nearby - by the time agreement is reached everything is shut.   And many more definitions which are equally hilarious in true Adams fashion.  Illustrated by Bert Kitchen.
  • More than 4,000 American Express employees were in Lower Manhattan on the morning of 9/11. Many had just arrived at the office and were getting ready to start their day. Eleven Coporate Travel employees who worked on the 94th floor of the World Trade Centre's north tower died that day.  This is American Express' tribute to them and to all the A.E. employees world-wide, who turned to and kept going through the devastation of that day.  Includes a CD.  An item for collectors of the unusual.
  • First published in 1822,  de Quincey's best-known work is still in print. Though seemingly offering the reader poignant memories, temporal digressions and random anecdotes, the Confessions is a work of great sophistication and rated as one of the most impressive and influential of all autobiographies. He evidences a nervous self-awareness as he scrutinises his own life in an effort to answer that eternal question: Who am I?  The horrors of addiction are not a large part of the whole yet in its day it was regarded as a 'lucrative piece of sensational journalism, albeit published in a more intellectually respectable organ' ( London Magazine). Written in an almost romantic, self-reflective neo-classical style it still today reaches out to the reader. 
  • Subtitle: Being Two Hundred Pictures of the English Inn from the Earliest Times to the Coming of the Railway Hotel. Somewhat misleading - this is not a book of two hundred pictures, but two hundred observations on the history of the English inn and its role in society, travel, festivals, portentous solemnity, a place of repose...The observations come from a fantastic diversity of names: John Bunyan, Samuel Pepys, Daniel Defoe, James Boswell, Disraeli, Dickens, Washington Irving, Thomas de Quincey, Shakespeare,  Sir Walter Scott, 'George Eliot', Chaucer, Anthony Trollope and many more.  The theme of the observations is as diverse as the contributors: from the 'gallant' in the tavern to the arranging of duels; from gluttons to gourmands; from highwaymen to harridans; from cockroaches to cleanliness and - of course - hosts and hostesses.
  • An annual for under tens, with stories and puzzles, poems and articles by Jean Matheson, Claire Moore and others. With colour plates, black and white illustrations and monochromatic comics.