Tuesday, Sep 30, 2025

My husband, Jonathan Burdon, and I have recently moved house. One of the tasks was packing our library for temporary storage. This included a large part of my book trade reference works, and Jonathan’s personal collection of SAS books. I believe it is fairly common knowledge that I, as a bookseller, do not ‘collect’ books, as I consider it to be a conflict of interest. Rather ‘my library’ consists of reading copies of books by my favourite authors or those I intend to read. It also includes a collection of books and pamphlets that have been inscribed to me by their author. When packing these I was drawn into reminiscing about where and why I had this collection. One author in particular was responsible for considerable ‘time out’ as I looked at the books and typescripts he had given me.

R. A. (Bob) Swan (1917-1999) is mainly remembered for his book Australia in the Antarctic: interest, activity and endeavour, published by Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, in 1961, and To Botany Bay . . . if policy warrants the measure. A re-appraisal of the reasons for the decision by the British government in 1786 to establish a settlement at Botany Bay in New South Wales on the eastern coast of New Holland, published by Roebuck, Canberra, in 1973. He also wrote more than twenty-five, often epic, poems, which he mainly self-published in small numbers. These poems are listed on the AustLit website.

Bob’s first visit as a customer was to our King Street premises in December 1978; over the years I got to know him first as a customer and then also as a friend. From time-to-time Bob would send me an inscribed copy of his latest poem and it was these very personal copies that interrupted my time when packing.

In 1990, due to his move from Melbourne to the Illawarra coast of New South Wales, I had the privilege of purchasing Bob’s collection of books, pamphlets and periodicals relating to polar regions (in particular Antarctica), whaling and sealing, which we presented as our Catalogue 140. A colleague is on record as saying it was the first Australian bookseller’s catalogue in his memory that had been devoted entirely to the Antarctic. The following is an extract from my introduction to our Catalogue 140 (April 1991).

R. A. Swan's increasing shift of literary interest to the humanities, coupled with a geographic shift to the idyllic Illawarra coast of New South Wales, has made available his library of works relating to Polar regions, whaling and sealing. These have been gathered together over the past forty years and have been used as a basic research library for a working historian.

Bob Swan's interest in Polar regions was stimulated at the age of sixteen by the only prize he ever won at Scotch College, Melbourne – a copy of Heroes of Modern Adventure, which included accounts of the exploits of Mawson and Wilkins. Several years later he bought a copy of the first official Australian map of the Antarctic.

After taking an active role in World War Il as a member of the 2/3 Australian Independent Commando Company; M Special Unit (the Coastwatchers); Z Special Unit (Allied Intelligence Bureau) Bob joined the Defence Department [1951-1954]. The Department had a fine library with strong Antarctic holdings, where he studied the published accounts of actual expeditions, and in so doing discovered that no account of overall Australian activity in the Antarctic had been published. He then started to collect and read books, pamphlets, &c., on the subject over the next seven years, resulting in the publication by Melbourne University Press, in 1961, of Australia in the Antarctic: interest, activity and endeavour. Many of his articles have been published and he has contributed to the Australian Dictionary of Biography and the British National Biography.

Bob's shift to the humanities is a natural one. During my friendship with him over the past twenty years I have on occasion been the recipient of bound typescript volumes of poems, usually limited to ten or twelve copies for private distribution, plus the occasional ode to mark a special season or occurrence in our shop. His desire to write poetry manifested as an antidote to the traumas experienced whilst at war and a collection of his wartime poems – Argonauts Returned and Other Poems – was published by the Bread & Cheese Club, Melbourne, in 1946. Since this publication none of his prolific outpourings of poetry has been published, which he accepts philosophically by agreeing with the dictum of Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges:

“l write for myself and my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time”.