The Clarion. Copper and Silver Number, 1898
[Melbourne], The Clarion, 1898.
Broadsheet (486 x 375 mm), iv, 42 pages with numerous illustrations (mainly from photographs) and illustrated advertisements; the preliminaries are printed in black, copper, silver and red.
Bound without the original wrappers in modern buckram lettered in gilt on the spine; light creases to all bottom corners, and to the top corners of the last half of the item, with the top corner area of the last two leaves slightly stained; trifling signs of use; overall an excellent copy.
An impressive item with important content: 'The Barrier Old and New' (10 pages, comprising 'Men of the Barrier in the Old Times' and 'Broken Hill Today'); 'The Silver-Lead-Copper Ores of Tasmania. West Coast Mines' (9 pages); and 'The Mines of the North - Chillagoe and Mt Garnett [the Coming Fields]' (20 pages). The final page contains a lengthy poem by Bedford, 'The Hunting of the Loot', reprinted from 'The Bulletin'. George Randolph Bedford (1868-1941), journalist, mining speculator and politician, 'survived the depression as a freelance journalist and in 1896 in Melbourne he launched his mining and literary journal, the "Clarion"; it was illustrated and part-edited by (Sir) Lionel Lindsay who became Bedford's lifelong friend. A militant Australian nationalist, he advocated republicanism, "White Australia", vigilance against the Japanese, a parochial form of socialism, and a military alliance with the United States of America. The journal was supported with advertising from Lionel Robinson and later by the colonial governments in special numbers. The "Clarion"'s notable contributors included A.G. Stephens, Louis Esson, Ambrose and Will Dyson, and Norman and Percy Lindsay. With the Lindsays and Dysons, Bedford was a founder of the Bohemian Ishmael Club' (Australian Dictionary of Biography).
Item #102513
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