Update: Australian & New Zealand Rare Book Summer School

The application form/ flyer for the 2014 Australian & New Zealand Rare Book Summer School is now available. There is also an online application form.

Classes will run from 10 to 14 February. Please see my earlier post for course descriptions.

The sessions on architectural books and natural history illustration will be held in the State Library of Victoria. Caren Florance's class on hand-press printing will be taught at the Ancora Press studio, Monash University (Caulfield campus). 

Applications will close on Friday 16 December 2013. Courses will proceed if sufficient applications have been received by Friday 6 December 2013. 

For further information, please email: rbss[@]slv.vic.gov.au.

Upcoming Rare Book Auctions - Australia

~ On 27 and 28 May, in three sessions, Australian Book Auctions offers 'Voyages and Travels and other Books and Documents'. The three books bringing the highest estimates are: a large paper copy of Matthew Flinders's A Voyage to Terra Australis (London, 1814), at $80,000 to $100,000 AUD (lot 33); an uncut copy in original boards of James Maria Magra's A Journal of a Voyage Round the World, in His Majesty's Ship Endeavour (London, 1771) with the suppressed Dedication leaf, expected to bring between $120,000 and $160,000 AUD (lot 55); and a first edition of the Second Voyage Round the World (London, 1776), a surreptitious account of Cook's 1772–1775 voyage, bound in red morocco from the Admiralty Office Library, listed at $80,000 to $120,000 AUD (lot 63).

A PDF of the catalogue can be viewed here.

~ The first Sydney Rare Book Auctions sale in their new premises is scheduled for 1 June. More than 400 lots will be on offer, including what is described as a 'clean, bright and crisp' copy of the first complete edition of James De Carle Sowerby and Edward Lear's Tortoises, Terrapins, and Turtles Drawn from Life (London, 1872), with three plain and 57 hand-coloured plates.

Catalogue not yet available on-line.

Conference 'Love and Devotion: Persian Cultural Crossroads'



A royal picnic (detail), from ʿAttar, Intikhab-i Hadiqa, c 1575

Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS. Canonici Or. 122, fol. 4v

Registration is still open for "Love and Devotion: Persian Cultual Crossroads", a three-day conference coinciding with the State Library of Victoria exhibition "Love and Devotion: From Persia and Beyond".

"This cross-disciplinary conference will explore cultural convergences in literature, art and architecture, history and philosophy from the time of Firdausi in the early 11th century to the present day, within the various Persian empires, Ottoman Turkey, Mughal India and Europe .... Distinguished international guests and Australian specialists will explore themes including Persian ideals of love and devotion as expressed through the arts, intersections with the west, and the contemporary legacy".

The conference runs from 12 to 14 April. Among the keynote speakers are:

~ Charles Melville (University of Cambridge): "The 'Arts of the Book' & the Diffusion of Persian Culture"

~ Stefano Carboni (Art Gallery of Western Australia): "Illustrated Talismans in the Bodleian Kitab al-Bulhan"

~ Zahra Taheri (Australian National University): "Women in Rumi's Spiritual Circle"

~ Mammad Aidani (University of Melbourne): "Authenticity & the Act of Devotion & Friendship in the Poetry of Maulana Jalal al-Din Rumi"

~ Barbara Brend (independent scholar, London): "The Khamsa of Nizami & the Khamsa of Amir Khusrau: Some Similarities & Differences Reflected in Their Illustrations"

A full list of speakers and paper abstracts can be found here.

The exhibition website offers a wealth of educational information, an events list and multimedia, including an image gallery and poetry readings. The site is well worth a visit if you are unable to make it to Melbourne.