In our next auction we have six Ion Idriess

Staff favourite is Lot 2. An unpublished story by Idriess describing a horrific plague of rats that emerged in outback New South Wales in the early 1880’s. The rats numbered millions, and stripped everything in sight in their pursuit of any possible food.

Idriess writes:

‘Drovers and bushmen experienced nerve-wracking nights while travelling along the path of the hurrying plague, for the rats swarmed like ants upon their saddlery and sent the horses stampeding mad with fright... Rats gnawing the leathern hobbles, rats gnawing their hooves, leaping up their legs, no wonder the horses went mad. Every drover caught in the path of the plague had to hang all saddlery and gear and everything eatable up in the branches of trees.’

Pictured Lot 3 Story titled “In Prehistoric Australia”, written by Ion Idriess, circa 1935.

Timed Auction. 12 noon, Sunday 5th May…

Timed Auction 12 noon Sunday 5th May 2024.

In our next auction we have 16 Ion Idriess items including 5 manuscripts, 2 lots with first editions and a collection of punting tickets owned by Ion Idriess in the mid-1950s. Idriess loved the races and these tickets may well explain how the profit from 47 popular novels was dissipated.

https://www.invaluable.com/catalog/jwexxyzbvb?query=idriess&page=1&size=48

Sydney Rare Book Auctions will be selling two remarkable manuscripts from the Idriess Estate along with a few of his books.

The first is a typed draft manuscript written by Ion Idriess in April 1936. The article is a charismatic biographical narrative about a Torres Strait hermit named Billy Turnbull. The article is titled 'The Crusoe of Hicks Island'. Idriess was an old friend of Billy Turnbull. The two men met while Idriess worked in the Far North and travelled through the Torres Strait picking up whatever work was available.

The second is a short story about pearlers in Northern Australia, written by Ion Idriess circa 1935... The story is titled 'Black Velvet'; and it is a sad tale of indigenous girls kept as concubines by pearlers on the Peron Islands off the coast of the Northern Territory. The story does not appear to have been published. The subject matte…

From an avid collector - for sale

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