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“HORDERN HOUSE of Sydney, Australia, is also in the process of issuing a series of catalogues of a major collection; two have appeared so far. The Whitmont Collection, like John Porter’s Pickering collection, was assembled over decades, eight in this case, and by three generations of a Sydney family rather than by a single individual. The collection consists of 18th and 19th-century printed books, manuscripts and other artefacts illustrating the earliest history of Australia’s discovery...

The history of writing down thoughts and feelings could be tens of thousands of years older than previously believed, surprising archaeologists who made the discovery.

The researchers discerned patterns of meaning in lines, notches, dots, and crosses on objects like mammoth tusks as old as 45,000 years in caves in Germany. (see image courtesy University of Tübingen / Hildegard Jensen).

Traditionally historians date the first written words to proto-cuneiform scripts made around 5,000 years ago in...

In this very rare and valuable first English edition of this remarkable imaginary voyage, Jacques Sadeur makes his way to the southern land and discovers in western Australia an idealised society of large-bodied hermaphrodites who live in harmony with one another. This English language printing of 1693 contains the very first usage of the words ‘Australia’ and ‘Australian’ in print. The author, Foigny speculates on all manner of Australian qualities, including speech:

“They never speak...