CARBONI, Raffaello

Rare publication limited to 150 copies, this being #55. Tall quarto, cloth backed, b/w decorated paper-covered boards in original dust-wrapper and slip case. Rag paper. Signed in ink by H. V. Evatt, W. E. Pidgeon and E. H. Shea. Very good indeed. Slip case browned and a little age-stained, minor marking to dust-wrapper spine and two small chips to back, two minor grease marks to dust-wrapper. Internally very clean and tight. All in all excellent. The Eureka Stockade is an 1855 novel by Raffaello Carboni. The first and only comprehensive eyewitness account of the Eureka Rebellion. Originally published by Carboni in 1856 following the Eureka Stockade at Ballarat this second edition was not published until 1942. A major example of a 1920s Australian private press, this edition was produced on a hand-press in 1942 by Ernest Shea's Sunnybrook Press Sydney, in a limited edition of 150 copies. The book is illustrated with lino-cuts by W.E. Pidgeon and introduced by H.V.Evatt. “Eureka Stockade took about five years of ‘leisure hours’ to complete the printing and binding. This edition included artwork created by William E Pidgeon, a well known cartoonist and later three times winner of the Archibald Prize. Sunnybrook Press was one of the few private presses in Australia operating during the Depression, and the surviving copies of Sunnybrook’s publications are fine examples of the Shea’s commitment to artistic endeavour in book production”