SILVER WATTLE.
South Australian acrostics. The proceeds to be devoted to The Home for Incurables, Fullarton. Pp. [ii]+96(last blank), the title page printed in red & black; f'cap. 8vo; dark green cloth, lettered and decorated in gilt & blind, slightly flecked and rubbed, fore-corners bruised, early small sticker (shelf label?) below top edge of upper board; upper hinge tender, the final blank extensively annotated in pencil, occasional faint foxing and soiling; printed by R. Kyffin Thomas, Adelaide, 1879. First edition. *From the extensive Australasian collection of James Edge Partington, with his bookplate on the upper pastedown. Spence recalled in her autobiography that she was asked by Mrs. Alfred Watts to compile 'a book of charades and double acrostics, for the printing and binding of which Mrs. Watts paid. It was entitled Silver Wattle, and the proceeds from the sale of this little book went to help the funds of the home'. Jane Isabella Watts (1824-1898) was the daughter of William Giles, who came to South Australian in 1837 to take charge of the whaling station at Kangaroo Island. She was the author of Memories of EarlyDays in South Australia, published for private circulation in 1882. Item #110205
Price: $750.00