Sydney Rare Book Auctions

William Blake's Book of Urizen - Trianon Press 1958 Limited edition (Lot 4)

In this auction we have a number of History, Science and the Arts lots including fine bindings, limited editions and more.

If you like science we have some natural history, geology, astronomy and philosophy. Check out Francis Bacon’s Sylva Sylvarum 1635 (Lot 6); Philosophical Magazine 1798-1808 – Fine Binding (Lot 52); Eucalyptus Maiden 1910-1912 (Lot 47); Journal of Science Samuelson & Crookes – Fine Binding (Lot 55); Geology of South Australia 1905-1951 (lot 59)

If history is more your thing we have items including voyages, exploration and discovery, early Australia, military history, biographies and more. Some highlights including: Unpublished manuscript: Set in Outback about the Bryce Russell Mystery 1940s (Lot 20); Second Voyage of North-West Passage 1835 (Lot 58); 1910 India, Australia, China & the Far East (Lot 10); Scapegoats First edition – Breaker Morant – Boer War & Murder of POWs (Lot 12); Sydney Shipping Gazette 1848-1856 (Lot 62); Prichard’s Egyptian Mythology 1819 (Lot 82).

We also have some good literature and art books with some limited, special or signed editions including: William Blake’s Book of Urizen – Trianon Press 1958 Limited edition (Lot 4); Christopher Hitchens Signed (Lot 30); Fergus Hume (Lot 67); Works of Rudyard Kipling Signed – Seven Seas Edition (Lot 86); Novels and Letters of Jane Austen limited (Lot 88); Edgar Allan Poe (Lot 89); The Illustrated Book Of The Dog (Lot 320);

History, Science and the Arts – Fine bindings, limited editions and more A192
Timed auction 26th July from 12noon
https://connect.invaluable.com/sydneybook/

Unpublished manuscript: Set in Outback about the Bryce Russell Mystery 1940s (Lot 20) In Auction 192 on 26th July 2026.

Kadaitcha: The Story of Bryce Russell as told to Peggy Graham.

Unpublished manuscript: Set in Outback about the Bryce Russell Mystery
160 pages. Typed on one side. Corrected manuscript. There are some small pen corrections. Unpublished. Only known copy. Circa 1938-1942.

The story follows the adventures of Bryce Russell, a charismatic drover and bushman. He grew up in the outback in South Australia. As a boy he had experiences with Aboriginal people and was able to communicate and was witness to corrobborees. He was scared of Kadaitcha.

As a young man he was sent to his Uncle John Livingstone’s station on the border of where Queensland meets South Australia to drove horses. This is likely John Livingston (1857-1935), stock-dealer and politician. (ADB)

He went to Gallipoli and was shot. After spending time in hospital and after recovery became part of the ANZAC Provost Corps. In the story he was shot in the lung, but the Virtual War Memorial Australia says he was shot in the leg.

When he returned, he found himself in sandhills near Birdsville, where he found a dead body. He went to Innaminka station where owner, Sidney Kidman sent for a police trooper.

I was unable to find much on the author Peggy Graham as a published author. However, in 1935 and 1936 the name Peggy Graham turns up in the newspapers. Graham travelled to England as a young woman to study scenario writing and came back to Australia with studio film experience. Graham shows a real panache for storytelling in this manuscript. I found an image of a man named Bryce Russell in the Daily Telegraph July 13th 1936. He sits atop a camel in a gallop. The caption reads, Bryce Russell, romantic camelier from the Northern Territory on one of his steeds yesterday during the filming of “Phantom Gold” near Sydney. The movie was based on the about the search for Lasseter’s Reef. (wiki). Perhaps Graham met Russell here? But shown above I have found some holes in her telling.

She definitely drew from a real-life mystery which appeared in the papers around the time that this story was likely written.

On September 11th 1937, Frank Clune writes an article for Smith weekly entitled: Man from ” The Centre” bound for Land of Ghosts: Seeks Leichhardt’s Remains, Hidden Wealth and Satisfaction. Russell tells Clune that he is well equipped for the adventure with camels and is experience with the land and the Aboriginal people. Clune continues, No white man has attempted it and lived. The aborigines call in Kaddaitcha country – “the land of ghosts.” Russell sets off with his camels never to return.

In the final chapter Graham writes, The Bryce of today is a tall and wiry fellow of fifty five, who yet retains, in spite of the loss of one lung, all the health and vigour of his youth. pp158(Manuscript). But the Virtual War Memorial Australia says Brice Frederick Russell was born in Mount Gambier in 1887. Which would mean she spoke to him in 1942. As there is little chance of Mr. Russell having found water in the desert it is believed that he has perished. (Fate of Bryce Russell 1937, November 11, The Recorder.)

In the manuscript, his last job was at Nappa Murray (Merrie) to gather up the Ghost Brumbies escaped from the Conrick family station. With all the dramatic flair of a John Wayne movie she ends the story, And so, Russell rides on through the interior. pp160(Manuscript).

The title, Kadaitcha Kadaitja or is an Aboriginal word. The Macquarie Dictionary states it could refer to the 1. (noun) Kadaitja spirt – a malignant spirit. Or 2. or a mission of vengeance or 3. Kadaitja shoes. the kadaitja is a person who wears kadaitja shoes, which are made from emu feathers and hair string, and any person who sees the track made by these shoes cannot track them, so this enables the kadaitja man to sneak up and kill somebody without being found out. (Observations of Customs with Kadaitja Practices in Central Australia, HS Kitching 1961) Kadaitcha is mentioned several times throughout the manuscript, the most powerful was on page 154, He got out of the car, and moving over to within about ten feet of them spoke a few words in Arunta. They stared at him without reply. Suddenly Russell looked all around him as though terrible scared of something, and whispered a in a frightened voice “kaditcha.”

I was unable to find evidence that Bryce Russell’s body was ever found.

This item (Lot 20) will be in the auction entitled: History, Science and the Arts – Fine bindings, limited editions and more A192 on the 26th July from 12noon
https://connect.invaluable.com/sydneybook/