Wednesday, May 18, 2016

A RARE READ AND OFFERINGS

A  pleasing read  has been RARE  A life among antiquarian books , by Stuart Kells, foreworded by Geoffrey  Blainey , published by Folio, Sydney ,  2011  which  deals with the  humble Melbourne  beginnings   and rise to fame  of   the renowned  Kay  Craddock Antiquarian Bookshop .Craddock   became the   first  woman to preside over the International League  of Antiquarian Booksellers.
 
 By  Peter Simon
 
A champion  Australian archer in  her   day , she was trained by both her father and Hans Wright , a  world and Olympic Games record holder in the l960s and 70s   who became the first Australian to  win American  national  events.

 Kay left school at 16  and at one stage   worked  in  an advertising agency and  during lunch used to go to the State Library of Victoria  and borrow books , one being  Gold in Your Attic:  A Guide to Valuable Rare Books , by Van Allen Bradley.

Journalist Bradley, literary editor of the Chicago Daily News for 23  years and a rare book  dealer  , wrote a syndicated column about gold in your attic . I suspect Bradley inspired a South Australian  wheeler  dealer  to  letterbox  a  large part of Adelaide  urging residents  to empty out their  attics and sheds of  newspapers, unwanted  books and  other items  and they  would be taken away free of charge  and  receive  a "mystery   gift"  in return .  He told me he  got the idea after reading a book by  a "Yank"  who  did  something  similar  and  became  a "millionaire".

As a result , he  said  piles of  newspapers , books  magazines and ephemera and   just plain junk  appeared  at   front  gates, on footpaths . With a hired truck  he spent  a hectic time  gathering the offerings  which  were  take home and  dumped in  his garage to be sorted out . 

 Some  of  the  old  newspapers and magazines  were  kept along with  the many books  , including  pulp fiction .  Apart  from  the cost of  hiring the  truck  , he  bought  boxes  of  made in China  soft  toys-the "mystery gift ",  which  popped up like mushrooms  at the  entrances of  many  homes,  and many may have  instantaneously  been  dumped  in  garbage  bins . 

Soon after , he  came into my old wares shop , spotted  some Toby jugs , which he collected, and  said would I  like to swap them  for a  shed  full  of books, old newspapers  and  magazines . Done . The  mystery mountain was transferred to my garage , sprayed  ,  and  slowly  sorted  out . Over the years he offered me  40 spinning wheels,  shipping containers   full  of  remainder  books , rare penny black stamps.  I regret not having  bought  from him a  chapeau  Nancy Wake  , the  famous   WWll French resistance  fighter known as  The White Mouse by the Gestapo,  supposedly wore  on  a visit   to  South Australia late  in  life.Wake was born in New Zealand  but raised  in  Sydney.

FOLLOW  UP   FROM   JOURNALIST   KIM  LOCKWOOD

In  1983, during my two years in The Australian's Melbourne bureau, I went down to St Kilda to do a story on a burgeoning antiquarian bookshop.  While there the owner, none other than Kay Craddock, sold me a first edition W.B. Yeats -- Stories of Red Hanrahan: The Secret Rose: Rosa Alchemica, A.H. Bullen, London, 1913. 228pp. 8vo. Original cloth backed boards, corners lightly bumped. Offsetting to endpapers. A very good copy. First edition thus I paid $90.

I have been collecting Yeats firsts ever since. (I have more than 100.) I was introduced to Yeats by Bill Harney (born in Charters Towers!) when I was in high school in Darwin. Over dinner one night Bill quoted, from memory He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, which enthralled me. Quite a few of my  firsts I bought  from  Kay. Quite accidentally our fortnight in Ireland in 2008 coincided with a special Yeats exhibition at the National Library -- original MSS, ephemera, films etc. (My other collection is Australian exploration. Cook, Burke and Wills, Stuart .)

***During  this  blogger's recent  trip to Charters Towers  a 1963 reprint of Bill Harney's  Grief, Gaiety and Aborigines was snaffled . If memory serves me  right, while staying overnight  in the Lockwood  residence  in  Darwin , Bill, who had been the ranger at Ayers Rock, now Uluru , somehow got himself  locked  in the lavatory and remained there until the morning  because he did not want to disturb  the household ... I was wrong, Kim put me right . Harney  remained in solitary confinement   because his loud shouts were not heard above the  airconditioning  and  a  boisterous  party going on at nearby Mareenah  House , formerly the hostel for  female public servants ,  which by then  was  the police barracks .  The noise and  mosquitoes  kept  Bill  awake  until he used  a toilet  roll  for a pillow and snatched  some slumber, curled up on the floor, wrapped  around the  toilet bowl . When he became  thirsty, he made use of the  cistern .


 I  met Bill  in  the Northern Territory News , in what must have been during his visit  in which  he  was locked in  the loo , when  he  came in  to  see   the  editor , Jim  Bowditch , the two having  been friends over  the years ; Harney spoke of  a  camp  he once had in Darwin at Two Fella Creek .  Bill died  at the end of  l962  in  Mooloolaba, Queensland.