From time to time as you read Idriess, you come across words that you are not familiar with: they may be words that are antiquated or archaic or maybe spelt differently; or may be of a somewhat technical nature; or perhaps words restricted to a more limited range, such as North Queensland. Just browsing through Men of the Jungle recently, I came across several on the one page (p.257, to be exact). One was five-fingers, a type of fruit, of which I had a vague memory, and which is perhaps better known as Star Fruit or Carambola. But the other fruit - at least I think it is a fruit, it comes in a list of fruit - is something called "sweet-buks." Anyone know what it is?

The other word is kop-maori oven. This word also occurs in Drums of Mer (p.179, 2nd ed.) - and perhaps other books of…

Feain and Aroney (Ion Idriess: An Annotated and Illustrated Bibliography) p.24, state that this book comes in

"Grey cloth with gilt on spine, issued in dust wrapper. There are two variants. The Australian version has $4.50 on the dust wrapper while the United Kingdom version has 42s. on the dust wrapper, red cloth and also states that it is the London edition on the publishing page."

I have the 42s. with red cloth version, but there is nothing about this being a London edition on the publishing page (which I presume is the verso of the title page, that is, p.iv). In fact it states "Printed in Australia by Halstead Press, Sydney," and has Sydney as the first place listed under publication date (then London). Similarly, a book advertised on eBay which originates from a UK library, has 42s. and a red cover, but no reference to its being a…

I have first editions of Over the Range - and also an eighth edition, 1945. The first editions have photos interspersed - 39, including the frontispiece (some are 2 photos per page and some plates single sided) and a table of "Illustrations" on pages ix and x. My 1945 edition only has the frontispiece, with no other photos and no list of illustrations - no pages ix or x. The whole book is slimmer and the illustrations do not appear to have been removed.

So my questions are: Was this a war-time saving for this edition? Or was there another reason for this edition to be published sans illustrations? Do other editions of OTR also lack these illustrations? Anybody know?

THE OPIUM SMUGGLERS A True Story of our Northern Waters by Ion L. Idriess, published 1948 How “true” is this “True Story of our Northern Waters”? I have given this question some thought over the last week since finishing the book, one I first read in 1954 when I was just a thirteen year old boy growing up in Maryborough. It was my favourite book at the time, and I read it several times. It certainly fired my imagination and gave me an appetite for damper that I was only able to satisfy with my Mother’s help. I was unable to make the sort of fire with hot embers in our back yard described in the book to cook a damper in so Mum made a damper in a casserole dish with a lid on inside the oven of the stove in our kitchen. Yes, I thought about the “true” nature of the book…