The Drawers
2 September 2011 -
The Drawers –
draw·er (drôr)
n.
1. One that draws, especially one that draws an order for the payment of money.
2. also (drôr) A box like compartment in furniture that can be pulled out and pushed in.
3. drawers (drôrz) Underpants.
Those of you who are regulars in the store, or who just pop in every now and again to find solace from the surface tensions of a paperless life, may or may not have noticed the twelve small wooden drawers next to our glass display cabinet as you pass by in search of manna on the open shelves. Alas, you may well have gone too far! Behind the inconspicuous sheen of those humble drawers awaits an under-recognised, and often decidedly odd, world of rare pamphlets, small books, old cookery books, sheet music, and other ephemera for the truly curious.
To give you an idea let’s start with ‘How To Pay ForThe War’ by John Maynard Keynes. In 1937, obviously exhausted after revolutionising modern economics, Keynes suffered a severe heart attack at the age of 54. Two years later, though not completely recovered, he returned to teaching at Cambridge, and wrote three influential articles on war finance entitled ‘How to Pay for the War – A Radical Plan for the Chancellor of the Exchequer’. Reprising his earlier work on emergency economics during the Great War, Keynes, now ‘sadder and wiser’, wrote in language the layman could understand and emphasised the wisdom of gathering ‘long-haul war finance through compulsory savings and taxation rather than borrowing and inflation’. ‘How To Pay For The War’ has been described in the much respected Economic Journal as a ‘persuasive little 88 page pamphlet, written with fervour and clarity’, and is perhaps as close as Keynesian economics comes to an existential crisis. A fascinating and collectible little duck-blue hardback from a thinker who, as we’ve seen during the financial meltdowns of late, is destined to always cycle back into fashion.
Though too often closed and therefore in darkness the drawers are nevertheless replete with illumination. On a slightly more ethereal note than Keynes, the ‘Folklore Guide To The Weather’ is a tiny and inexpensive treasure of clouds and dew, mock suns and lunar haloes, just waiting to be picked up by a curious soul. Published by the Western Press out of North Devon in 1954, this quirky guide is basically a collection of bon mots on meteorological phenomena. For instance, did you know that ‘leeches in a jar remain at the bottom during absolutely fine (and calm wet) weather’ but if ‘they rise during a continuance of easterlies, strong winds rather than rain are to be looked for’? Or were you ever made aware that ‘air bubbles over clam beds indicate rain’? My day was certainly improved by the knowledge that ‘camphor gum dissolved in alcohol will throw out feathery crystals before rain’. In short, who needs the Bureau of Meteorology website with a handy little treasure like this in hand!
Our twelve humble drawers also contain pleasures for the literary minded, such as an original edition of Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room Of One’s Own’ in the Penguin Classic format. This edition is published in the mauve and white of Penguin’s ‘Essays and Belle-Lettres’category, and despite a little foxing, is in good nick. As is the quite lovely pale blue pamphlet called ‘The Classics and The Man Of Letters’, which contains the presidential address given to the Classical Association by T.S.Eliot on April 15 1942. ‘The Fire and The Anvil – notes on modern poetry’ by the legendary and prolific New Zealnd poet James K Baxter is also waiting quietly in the third drawer from the top on the left hand side.
‘What You Have Eaten in Norway’by Buster Holmboe is a nice example of the arcania avalable to those brave enough to open our drawers. A guide to popular Norwegian dishes published in 1954, it covers everything from Betasuppe (Mutton Broth) to Lutefisk (Cod prepared in a Potash Lie), with a special section at the back on the Norwegians' great love of open sandwiches. There is definitely some culinary ‘gold’ in this one though I’m wondering if Tunge Med Leverpostei (Tongue with Liverpaste) was the right note to end on.
Our drawers (humbly awaiting your awakened gaze) are also chockers with hard to find examples of local history and ephemera. For instance, the original sheet music for the Skippy theme song is dying to spring back to life. As are the throwback country tunes of Smoky Dawson in his 3rd Album of Songs. (Feel free to bring your banjos so you can give us all a rendition instore.) For the regionally minded, or those with specifically parochial interests, the drawers are full with oodles of joy. The pages of ‘Otway Schools in Retrospect’ are laden with by-the-way photos and informative tidbits from the often rainy and intrepid educational past of those beechy hills. The small pamphlet that is ‘A History of the Geelong Young Liberals’ would be a find for those who prefer their drawer-contents perhaps a little dry, but ‘Flour Mills and Millers of the Goulburn Valley 1858-1980’ is, like so many of the other local history items in the drawers, laden with the kind of interesting minutae that makes a local life worth living.
So, our Drawers, Drorz, Drors, (sayit how you like) await your consideration next time you’re in the shop. They bring to mind the famous remark of James Joyce that a piano is only a coffin of music until someone opens it up and brings it to life again. So it is with the drawers here at Barwon Booksellers. And here below is just a sample of some of the great stuff you’ll find if you stop to open them up.
A Room Of One’s Own –Virginia Woolf (1st Penguin 1945) - $10
A Village Lattice – FW Boreham (Epworth Press 1945 w/wrapper) - $40
The Bachelors Of Mosgiel– FW Boreham (1st edw/wrapper 1933) - $50
My Manse In Maoriland –FW Boreham (1st ed hardback w/wrapper 1929) -$200
The Dahlia In Australia –EE Pescott (no date - Whitcombe & Tombs) - $20
What You Have Eaten In Norway – Buster Holmboe -$10
The Original and Only Miss Drake’s Home Cookery – Revised & Enlarged by Dorothy M Giles (1942) -$25
The Swallow Story (1950)- $12
Tasmania’s War Effort (A brief outline of the part played by Tasmanians in aiding the War Effort of Australia in the World War, 1939-45) - written & compiled by Matt O’Brien (Gov’t of Tas 1946) - $25
The Classics and The Man Of Letters (The Presidential Address delivered to the Classical Association on 15 April 1942) – T.S.Eliot (Oxford 1942) - $50
The Vagabond At Sleepy Hollow (Being Extracts From The Geelong Writings of John Stanley James) - ed.Les Blake (1986) - $8
A History of the Geelong Young Liberals by Kent W Henderson - $6
How To Pay For The War (A Radical Plan for the Chancellor of the Exchequer) – John Maynard Keynes (1sted. Macmillan 1940) - $20
Otway Schools in Retrospect 1890-1973 - $5
Flour Mills and Millers of the Goulburn Valley 1858-1980 by Myrtle L Ford -$5
The Fire and the Anvil (notes on modern poetry) – James K Baxter $10
Skippy the bush kangaroo by Eric Jupp (sheet music for Skippy song) - $15
Chums Special Summer Number (circa 1928-30) - $8
Golden Days of Radio -the best of wireless in Australia during the ‘40s & ’50s (Australia Post 1991)– 2 items: Book & Stamps - $10
The Human Person and Society by Eric Gill (The Peace Pledge Union 1940) - $8
Folklore Guide to The Weather by David Bowen (The Western Press N.Devon 1953) - $5 SOLD
The Ford Owners Complete Handbook of Repair and Maintenance (covering all models 1932 thru 1939) by William J Lipsett (Floyd Clymer 1949) - $25
Victorian Funghi by James H Willis (Field Naturalists’ Club of Vic 1941) - $25
Eve in Ebony – The Story of Jedda by Charles Chauvel - $25
Smoky Dawson’s 3rdAlbum of Songs (Sheet music Allan & Co) - $25