Hesperian Press

Latest Releases

Aboriginal Australian and Tasmanian Rock Carvings and Paintings & Aboriginal Australian Decorative Art

By Daniel Sutherland Davidson. With a Foreword by Kim Akerman.

Two volumes in one. ISBN 978-0-85905-374-7 and ISBN 978-0-85905-375-4, Case bound with laminated cover, 330pp, plus 6 colour plates, 16.5 x 25cm, 950 grams

$95.00* + POST

First published in 1936 and 1937 these rare books are unknown to most anthropologists, art dealers and collectors.

Davidson was the most important ethnographer of his time and his reputation for the quality and quantity of work produced is unmatched.

Aboriginal Ethnographica

Australian Aboriginal Axes, Spears, Clubs, Canoes, Baskets and Boomerangs.
Petroglyphs, [Rock art] , [Interlocking] Key Designs, Waningas, Churingas, Fire, Footwear & Death.

by Daniel Sutherland Davidson.
With an Appreciation of D.S. Davidson by Kim Akerman. 

ISBN 978-0-85905-491-1, (2011R), A4, 489pp, illustrated, 1500 grams

$120.00* + POST

NOW AVAILABLE IN A "SOFT COVER" EDITION. FOLDED FLAPS 300gsm COVER. 1300 GRAMS, $85.00* + POST

This magnificent volume of 489 x A4 pages contains the majority of Davidson’s Australian ethnographic papers from 1933 to 1953.

The sub-title presents the range of material included, all profusely illustrated.

Bibliography of books, articles, and pamphlets dealing with Western Australia, issued since its discovery in 1616

by Francis G Steere

ISBN 978-0-85905-500-0, (1923, reprint 2011), 186pp, A4, 515 grams

$45.00* + POST

This important and interesting bibliography, compiled by the then Parliamentary Librarian, contains many references no longer easily accessible through the library catalogues due to the iniquitous policy of not indexing journal articles. An essential reference for bibliophiles, librarians and historians. The original in exceptionally rare. 

From Cabbage Trees to Gum Trees

by Robin MacLeod

ISBN 9787-085905-497-3, 2011, New, 264pp, illust. 540 grams

$35.00 + POST

This is an absorbing account of the life from the 1930s of a New Zealander, 'Cat,' who so much enjoyed her primary school she decided at the age of six to become a teacher.  This she did until the 1980s when she left a small New Zealand with few fearsome creatures for a large Australia with large, often fearsome wildlife, to join 'Min' for a very different way of life in Western Australia.

Triumphs and Tragedies : Oombulgurri. An Australian Aboriginal Community

by Neville Green

ISBN 978-0-85905-092-0, (New, 2011), 228pp, 160 x 240, illust., 530g

$35.00 + POST

Oombulgurri emerged from the remnants of Forrest River Mission to become one of the first independent Indigenous communities in Australia. During its 97 years its people have participated in events that captured national headlines; the search for the Southern Cross, the rescue of the crew of a German seaplane, reports of a massacre that sparked a Royal Commission, their service as guides to an elite military force preparing for the anticipated Japanese invasion of Australia and, in recent years, the community’s decline into poverty, depression and suicide. Sixty percent of the school children of 1967 are now dead. The missionaries and most of those they served are gone and so too is the lifestyle of that not so distant past, but in these pages we discover how church and government policies and failures shaped the present and the small achievements of Aboriginal people are soon lost in yet another wave of policies and practices that are presumed to be good for ‘them’.