IMPORTANT NOTICE!

ROAD CLOSURE

WE ARE STILL OPEN

2-4pm Tues + Fri New Summer Hours 

Metronet, not satisfied with wrecking the rail and roads for some 2+ years, have announced the closing of the area of Oats Street outside our office.

Parking must be on Rutland Ave or around.

NEW OPENING TIMES + APPOINTMENTS

From the end of October through summer we are shortening our opening hours to, from 2 PM to 4 PM, Tuesdays and Fridays.

This will channel erratic customer service to a concentrated period. And save us all from hot boredom.

The majority of phone queries can be conducted via email to the satisfaction of all.

Discussions re publishing must be commenced with emails detailing the content of the manuscript.

Please note that those seeking to talk long will be placed at the end of the que. 

Ditto for those bringing in manuscripts without an appointment.

At 81 time is short and our backlog great.

EMAIL WARNING

We have had several queries from overseas translators checking whether we are advertising for translators.

Criminally inclined Chinese operators are using a close adaption of our name in a @gmail account to solicit such work.

We have observed Chinese gangsters trying it on for our name in the past.

In the past we have noted Chinese criminals involved in book stealing rackets in Western Australia. 

They were just in advance of the criminally destructive policies of the State Library.

If the book is on the website and booklist it is in print and in stock.
 

PLEASE NOTE: Any book title starting with "The" - the second word of the title is used to list by.

   All prices quoted are in Australian currency and include GST. * Short trade discount.

   If you are unsure of a title use the search facility on the left hand side of this page. 

This Home Page list is the new releases. 

See the Main Booklist for full details.

We have rarely changed the prices upwards on our books. Plenty have been discounted.
 

However, with a combination of declining sales, declining stocks, and greatly increased production costs some changes are necessary.

Reprinting of many core titles has generally not been viable. But when we do this the runs are much smaller.

So costs per copy are higher. So usually these will have reduced trade discounts, marked with a * on the listed price.

We are on the tail end of the following titles, Black and white, Yammaji, Youanme.

The prices of the remaining stock are now raised to fit in with the new pricing if/when we reprint. All are now rrp $40.00*

Most of our titles will not be reprinted when they become out of print. Then the rare book sellers will have a field day.

Geological Library of Geoff Blackburn.
 

Retired geologist Geoff Blackburn’s international geological library is now for sale.

Some 266 + shelving feet of books and journals are now available for inspection at the Hesperian Press warehouse.

Highlights are a very large section on Africa/Middle East and substantial collections on South America and SE Asia.

Preference given to the sale of each of these sections complete. Offers for the full collection solicited from corporate or individual buyers.

Contains many rare and very difficult to obtain items.

Further gems in consideration for sale are a beautifully bound set of WA Geological Survey Bulletins, a well bound set of Mines Department Annual Reports, a bound set of the Aerial Geological and Geophysical Survey of Northern Australia, and also an unbound set. 

Obituary

Kim Akerman
 

5 November 1947 - 19 September 2024.
 

I first met Kim in the late 1950s at the Perth Wildlife Show, held by the WA Naturalists Club in the Perth Town Hall. I was a volunteer and later represented the WA Speleological Group.

Kim, then a high school student, had a display of spectacular native dancing masks from New Guinea and I was a little concerned that the dirty fingered public might be detrimental to them. Kim’s father, Dr. John Akerman had been a medico in PNG, where these items were collected. His mother, Eve, was a journalist. While I only met Dr Akerman that once at the WLS, I kept up a social contact with Eve, then living in Thomas Street, Subiaco. My wife and I called in occasionally to hear the latest of Kim’s wanderings in the Wilds. His elder brother, an oil man, introduced me to Asian antiquities by showing me an exquisite marble head of a Chinese girl, found in Malacca.

Later I remember Kim at the Uni. He was, I think, staying at one of the colleges and his fascination with the material culture of the Aboriginals was paralleled with my interest in mineralogy. I was mucking about with part time mature age studies, a total disaster, but an interesting introduction to the ‘system’. I developed my own system and bypassed the degree beast. Kim developed a combination, but followed his own maps.

Outside Kingswood College at the bus stop Kim was practicing spear throwing skills. “Stand behind that tree and I will aim at it” His aim at that stage was inexpert, and it ricocheted off another tree and nearly speared me.

I ran into Kim on and off over the years. He, Mike Archer, and myself, with our wives had some great dinners. Later all three of us, for greatly varying reasons, divested ourselves of, or were divested by, our partners.

Kim worked in the Kimberley, learning from the old men their secrets, and being initiated into their philosophies. ‘Kakerman,’ as he was known to some, was already becoming a legend.

Years later, and multiple changes in life and self-made careers, I joined again with Kim in publishing his original anthropological works and translations from the Swedish and German masters.

All these are listed on the Hesperian Press website, with the exception of the last. That was being edited and typeset by my daughter Celene when the news came of his passing came from Kim’s wife, Val.

Kim’s health had been precarious for some years, and it was only his will power and determination to finish his self-set tasks, and the care by Val, that kept him going.

We had discussed his unique records and their disposal. He was very disturbed by the closing of anthropological records by many wokey institutions. I believe he countered this with digitisation of his photographs and distribution of hard drives among multiple institutions. He freely gave advice on the importance and value of ethnographic collections, countering the insanity of the communist state of Victoria, in their arbitrary and criminal cases of confiscation.

His carefully curated collections of ethnographica, developed in his field work, and his keen eye for the displaced items in auction houses and online, made his collections a joy to behold by those looking at the old days and old ways.

His most recent book, Scales of the Serpent, on the Aboriginal use of pearl shell, will become a great classic and the contents will resonate among tribals and collectors for generations to come.

A year ago Kimberley men visited him to be taught how to make traditional spear and flaked stone points. They took along a cameraman to record the lost art so as to train a new generation in the making of such beautiful objects. 

Kim was also an artist, hand carving countless objects and figures since he was a teenager. Animals, fantastic scenes and motifs were created from mammoth ivory, whale teeth or bone and inlaid with shell, horn or amber, as well as scrimshaw on bone and whale teeth. He made his own carving and engraving tools, including the intricately carved handles. 

So passes the last of the great ethnographers of Aboriginal culture. His like will not be seen again. 

Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Peter J. Bridge

22 September 2024

A Premier Position. Lady Margaret Elvire Forrest 1844-1929.

Chris Holyday.

ISBN 978-1-875778-09-6, A4, 41 pages, illustrated, indexed, 195 grams, $35.00*

As Margaret Elvire Hamersley, she was raised in the backblocks of Australian colonial life; as Lady Forrest, she died the widow of Australia's first Peer of the Realm. The story of her life may help to integrate Westralian and National history, as well as draw attention to the conspicuous lack of female portraits in Australian historiography. –     Frank Crowley. 

Lady Margaret Forrest occupied a unique position as the extremely capable wife of arguably one of the most powerful Premiers in Western Australia’s history and as one of very few individuals from whom John Forrest took counsel – indeed, she held a premier position.

The Alluvialists. The Kalgoorlie Riot of 1898.

Rod Moncrieff.

ISBN 978-1-875778-13-3, 124 pages, A4, illustrated, 370 grams, $40.00*

The fight of the alluvial prospectors and miners against the Forrest government’s mining laws. Laws against alluvial mining on reef and lode leases.

‘Ten Foot Ned’ Wittenoom and the government’s intransigence against the alluvialists created riots that led to the gaoling of prospectors.

Their slogan of “Fair Play, Fair Laws and Justice to All” rings true forever.

This is now a little known but important part of WA mining history. 

The rights of alluvialists were cut away again in the 1970s. Further attacks will take place as they have in other states. In the coming Greater Depression these rights will become essential for the survival of many.

Among Untamed Savages

ISBN 978-1-875778-32-4, (New, 2024) A5, 8 pages. $10.00*

On meeting the missionaries near Camden Harbour.

An American oil man in the West Kimberley – 1924. In the Northwest of the Australian Desert.

by Frederick Clapp.

ISBN 978-1-875778-37-9, (R 1924, 2024) A4, 31 pages, illustrated, with map, **grams, $22.00*

Very interesting description of work in the Canning Basin in 1924. 

Before Gold
by Jim Cameron

ISBN 978-0-85905-982-4, (New, 2023), well illustrated, indexed, French flap soft cover, 321 pages, with a 1908 colour map, $60.00

Before Gold is the mining history of Northampton. The first mining field in WA, it was a flourishing copper and lead producer. Changes in markets led to an erratic life but rich veins remain. Jim Cameron is a retired lecturer on WA economic history, and Northampton born.

Winner of the 2023 Williams/Lee Steere Publication prize.

Several of the entries were strong contenders for the prize, however one book stood out – Jim Cameron's Before Gold: the Northampton Mineral District 1846-1880. Published by Hesperian Press.

This well-researched, excellently referenced book demonstrates a high standard of scholarship and the use of a wide range of sources. It is the first work to explore the birth of the WA mining industry and the first major work to cover the period between convicts and gold – so it fills a large gap in Western Australian historical writing. Employing the skills of both geographer and historian Cameron's story is never one-dimensional as it ranges far and wide, including market prices for ore in London and Wales, transport and shipping difficulties, colonial government policies and many other aspects as well. Jim Cameron's engaging and informative narrative is supported by maps, tables and graphs and he is so familiar with his material that it feels as though he knows the people he writes about! The book is also fully indexed – a feature greatly valued by busy researchers. Before Gold is a landmark publication and a worthy winner.

Boiling the Billy.

ISBN 978-1-875778-30-0, (New, 2024), A5, 4 pages, $10.00*

Verse on the problem of getting a cup of tea in the desert spinifex.

Bonney Downs Station, Nullagine. Memoirs of Thora Howard.

Annotated by Margaret Vermeer.

ISBN 978-0-85905-991-6, A4, 55 pages, illustrated colour and B&W, Indexed, 190 grams, $30.00* plus postage.

Available from Margaret Vermeer (nee Gallop) 0427748236, PO Box 137, Mirrabooka 6941.

Bush Chloroform, and other salutary tales from the Tropical Frog.
Ed by Peter J. Bridge

ISBN 978-1-875778-31-7, New, (2024), A4, 12 pages, 70 grams, $22.00*

Biographical details and stories of The Tropical Frog by Crosscut Wilson and Jean Dell.

The Frog was a well-known itinerant of the early Pilbara.

The Battle of Harvey.

Pat Trembath.

ISBN 978-1-875778-05-8, A5, 5 pages, $10.00.

A battle in a good war (ie no white men were killed). An otherwise unrecorded native fight with the usual slaughter, sometime in the mid? 1800s.

The Dempsters.

Rica Erickson.

ISBN 978-1-875778-07-2, 334 pages, 160 x 340, illustrated, French flap cover, indexed, 770 grams, $70.00*

The great pioneering family. The Dempster interests ranged from shipping and coastal trading to merchandising, from whaling to farming, from fishing to horse-breeding, from sandalwooding to pearling. They explored some of the harshest regions in the state, and successfully established a pastoral station in one of the most isolated districts. They organised searches for gold and promoted new farming methods. They were leaders in community and civic affairs and were active in politics. They built historic homesteads and founded families that carried on with the same zest for life and sturdy self-reliance that was the hallmark of their ancestors.

A small run of a long out of print book.

The Drummonds of Hawthornden.

Rica Erickson.

ISBN 978-1-875778-06-5, 208 pages, 160 x 240, illustrated, French flap cover, indexed, 520 grams, $65.00*

The pioneer botanical and police members of this family made a permanent mark on the colony.

A small run of a long out of print book.

8 Battery. An Enduring Force. 

Major Ronald Cutten RFD.

ISBN 978-0-85905-990-9, (New, 2023), A4, french flaps, well illustrated, 276 pages, ~800 grams, $66.00*

The first artillery unit in Western Australia was formed in 1872 with the formation of the WA Troop of Horse Artillery (formerly the Union Troop of Mounted Volunteers). This was followed by frequent name and equipment changes, even after Federation in 1901. At the outbreak of war in 1914, Western Australia was allocated a field artillery battery. From August 1914, the existing 37 Battery militia became 8 Battery AIF.

This book tells the story of 8 Battery, a unit that made its name in World War 1 but whose influence was felt long after the cessation of this conflict.

8 Battery served from Gallipoli on through to the Western Front. While the official unit war diaries and other sources give detailed descriptions of action on the war front it is thanks to the letters and diaries left behind by two remarkable soldiers, namely Hector Roy McLarty and William (Bill) Lyall that the author has been able to capture  personal stories of victories and losses, of tragedies and heroic acts, and of  comradeship and service to country. 

8 Battery’s influence did not end at the finish of the Great War. After World War 1 it was the basis of the continuing service of artillery in Western Australia, Members of 8 Battery also served in World War 2 units, in particular 6 Battery of 2/3 Australian Field Artillery (Greece) and in the 14^thBattery of 2/7^th Australian Field Regiment (Middle East). Soldiers who had been leaders in World War 1 continued their leadership in the Second World War.

The 8^th Battery Association continued the strong bonds formed on the battlefield and was active right up until the 1950s. 
8 Battery’s example of continuing service is reflected in today’s former and currently serving gunners. 8 Battery’s story is one that deserves to be told. 

Eliza. Malice, Corruption and Mrs Tracey’s Case.

Rod Moncrieff.

ISBN 978-1-875778-14-0, 110 pages, A4, Illustrated, 350 grams, $35.00*

This lively and detailed biography of one of Western Australia’s most colourful identities covers the time of her arrival in the Swan River Colony in 1859, until her death in 1917. It documents the life and times of an aggrieved woman in her self-proclaimed quest for fair play, equity and justice.

Eliza Tracey revelled in numerous appearances before an assortment of audiences – from the riverside Esplanade to the stage of the Perth Town Hall; from soapboxes in the metropolis to platforms out in the backblocks; and, most memorable of all, the various inferior and superior courts of Western Australia which she graced over a lifetime of litigation. Along the way she was imprisoned, then hospitalised, and her case was investigated by two parliamentary Select Committees.

Over a controversial and event-filled life, Eliza Tracey never took a backward step. She was unafraid to spruik her views on suffragettes and the franchise for women, prostitution and the red-light district on Roe Street, political interference and the Federation issue. However, she reserved her spiciest vitriol for the burgeoning list of magistrates, judges and lawyers who, she believed, had connived to rob her by malice and corruption in her “fight for right against might”.      

FCB Vosper of the long hair. A radical democrat ahead of his time.

Chris Holyday.

ISBN 978-0-85905-994-7, (2023, New), A4, illustrated, 145 pages, 420 grams, $40.00*

A detailed biography of a great politician. “Apart from the Premier, Sir John Forrest, no public figure was more widely known in the West Australian gold rush of the 1890s than FCB Vosper. Street-corner agitator, vitriolic newspaper editor and state politician, he achieved remarkable prominence while still in his twenties.” – Edwin Jaggard. 

This is the first comprehensive biography of an outstanding democrat of democrats whose star shone brightly across the roaring nineties of the West Australian gold rushes. He was a firebrand newspaper editor, powerful public speaker, passionate miner, mineralogist, mine reporter, union agitator, MLA for Western Australia and a reformer. He has contributed significantly to the history of Western Australia and his biography makes compelling reading.

Feathers, Petals, Funny Tails… and More. Linocut Prints and Ink Drawings with Pastel.
by Donna Reid and Kerry Reid.

ISBN 978-085905-998-5, (New 2024), A4, 46 pages, Full colour illustrated, 315 grams, $**.00*

Available only from the author and her agent at Gwalia Museum, Leonora.

 The Forgotten Art of Flash Jack Barrymore.
Works on Paper, Painted Pearl Shells and Engraved Boab Nuts, from the first half of the 20^th Century. 

Kim Akerman with Bruno Jordanoff. 

ISBN 978-0-85905-993-0, (New, 2023), A4, Illustrated in colour, french flaps, 86 pages, 390 grams, $52.00*

In the first half of the 20th century Flash Jack was a well-known and respected artist who primarily catered for the crews and passengers of steam ships that serviced the coastal towns of Western Australia and sailed north to Singapore.

Working on paper, boab nuts and small pearl shells, Jack created images of Aboriginal life in the Kimberley. Sadly, by the 1970s his name had disappeared from the story of Kimberley indigenous art history. In The Forgotten Art of ‘Flash Jack’ Barrymore, Kim Akerman with Bruno Jordanoff examine Jack’s life and art, bringing together nearly a hundred works of art which had, until recently, been forgotten and place this extraordinary man as a crusader for Aboriginal contemporary art in the Kimberley.

GWF. William Joseph Courtney. A biographical note.

Mark Chambers & Peter J. Bridge

ISBN 978-1-875778-04-1, A5, 6pp, $10.00*

A note on the author of the volume, GWF.

HGB Mason in the Wilds of the West.

Peter J. Bridge & Geoff Blackburn.

ISBN 978-0-85905-715-8, A4, 50 pages, illustrated, 180 grams, $35.00*

A biography, with a genealogical study, and the bush verse of a previously enigmatic explorer, bushman, pastoralist, and keen cricketer. Author of the much acclaimed Darkest West Australia. A Treatise bearing on the Habits and Customs of the Aborigines and the Solution of ‘The Native Question.’ 1909.

Locked Up In Fremantle 1829-1856. Prisoners and Patients on the Marquis of Anglesea and in the Round House. 

by Steve Errington.

ISBN 978-0-85905-999-2, (New, 2023), 266 pages, 240 x 160, French flap soft cover, 460 grams, $70.00.

This book is a vital addition to both Steve’s recent book on the Roundhouse and the earlier collections of the WA Dictionary of Biography series.

McLean Bros & Rigg Ltd, General hardware electrical and machinery merchants, Catalogue No. 3 1950.

ISBN 978-1-875778-36-2, (1950, R 2024) A4, 340 pages, French flaps, highly illustrated, 980 grams, $80.00*

This magnificent catalogue with thousands of illustrations of items will become as essential reference for collectors of a wide range of Australiana items, dealers, ebayers, and those involved in all manner of heritage studies.

A lucky find in the crowded shelves of a junk shop. The only known copy now reproduced for the benefit of all.

My father worked for McLeans as a shipping clerk before the war and was helpfully advised by the Customs officer son of Pilmer of Northern Patrol in customs clearances. Nearby was his father’s business, Bridge Built Tinware & Sheetmetal Work based in Wellington Street, Perth, and started in his Carlisle backyard during the Great Depression. Wartime work was on the submarine fleet at Fremantle. Later it became Bridge and Wilson, which again later became Jason Industries at Welshpool. The plant in the old Government Munitions Factory grew into the large factories in Pilbara Street. This unfortunately was stripped of people, land and assets by the banksters and a flourishing business employing hundreds of West Australians was thrown to the wolves, if not of Wall Street, their close relatives, and just as savage. 

The pages of this wonderful catalogue display the Model Maid and Cinderella kitchen products as well as the Fasta bath heater, all produced by Jason Industries. My youthful visits to the anodising and plating operations and forced work on the metal spinning lathes (to keep an eye on me after a thwarted adventure) are still fresh in my mind. I admired the work of the toolmakers, the 100 ton press and the hard working machine operators. 

The destruction of so much of Australian industry by the Whitlam and following Labor and other governments, with the Lima Agreement, globalism and free trade have been a disaster for the nation. Some of the blood sucking scum of the underworld became billionaires and with others cannibalised the assets of a once highly productive and creative nation. We all know who they are but their faecal families may object to being named.

This process, ongoing in the Western world, has delivered us into the hands of the crass commercialism of China and elsewhere. Our once almost self-sufficient nation has been ‘consumerised’. There is currently no way out of this mess. It is going to get bad, very, very bad.

The once most advanced political economy in the world has been reduced to beggar status and we are now just a colony of international capital. Our so-called allies (All Lies) are merely those closer to our dinner plate, with us as the dinner. The swamps of the ruling political parties must be drained and the poison of those beholden to alien interests defanged.

While few understand the processes of destruction that have gone on we all have some nostalgia for the past and this is expressed in the growing interest in the relics of our past. Collector’s, historical societies, and vintage shops flourish, albeit as adjuncts to pawn shops, a sign of our sad times.  

The republication of this magnificent catalogue will enable collectors and dealers to identify and place the significance of items. It will bring to light many lost memories. Perhaps it will also act as a reviver for those whose autarkic ideas may regenerate industry and a natural nationalism.   

McLean Brothers and Rigg’s Perth operations were serially cannibalised and eventually closed sometime in the early 2000s.