The
antiquarian book firm of Gaston Renard Pty. Ltd. was founded in Brisbane, Australia
in 1945 by Gaston Renard (1914-1990). In 1948 he moved to Melbourne where he
established a growing Australian and international business specialising
in Australiana, Voyages and Travels and Natural History catering
to both institutional and private customers. In 1959 he conducted
the first of several ground-breaking Auction Sales with the sale
of the library of the noted naturalist Charles Barrett. This was
followed by further sales of the libraries of Dr. Ralph Pilkington
(1963), A. L. Tremewen (1964) and the celebrated F. G. Coles collection
in 1965. Each of these sales established new records for Australian
book sales. After the Coles sale in 1965 Gaston Renard again moved
the business to Croydon, Surrey, England where the international
side of the business flourished, but ultimately the call of the Eucalypt
proved too strong and he returned to Melbourne in 1970. In 1976 the
present proprietor, his son Julien Renard, joined the firm and in
1981 the tradition of record-breaking auction sales was continued
with the sale of the library of Clive Turnbull. In 1982, Julien Renard
took over the running of the firm and continued to develop the mail-order
side of the business (always a strong point since the early days).
Further record auction sales were held in 1988 (the Bremer collection),
1989 (the personal library of the long-time Melbourne bookseller
Bruce Evans of H. A. Evans), and 1994 (three magnificent libraries
of Antarctica, Australian Exploration and Australian Art books).
Today, Julien Renard is still available for consultation on private
library disposals and in conjunction with established Australian auctioneering firms can offer a cataloguing and auction service second to
none.
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Gaston
Renard Pty. Ltd. is today principally a mail-order and Internet business
specialising in fine and rare books on Antarctica, Australian Exploration,
Voyages and Travels, Bligh & the Bounty Mutiny and early Natural
History. In addition to dealing in Antiquarian Books, Gaston Renard
has recently established two new ventures in publishing. Our Book
Explorer series of CD-Roms comprises searchable electronic texts
of Australian explorations. Using unique and specially developed
technology for the PC these CD-Roms enable sophisticated study of
the original published source texts as well as zoomable maps and
illustrations. Eight titles are already available including the accounts
of John McDouall Stuart, First Fleet Surgeon-General John White,
Thomas Mitchell's Tropical Australia, Charles Sturt's Southern Australia,
John Macgillivray's Rattlesnake voyage, Ludwig Leichhardt's Overland
Expedition John Oxley's Two Expeditions and Watkin Tench's Narrative
of the Expedition to Botany Bay, and further titles are in preparation.
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Our
second new venture, under the imprint Edition Renard, comprises a
more conventional publishing program of fine limited editions of
important Australian works. The first title, John
White's Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales, complete
with 65 coloured plates, elegantly typeset in Garamond, and finely
bound in full Australian
goatskin was issued in 2002 and a few copies are still available. The second title, Aboriginal
Life in Old Australia, a fine "enhanced
facsimile" of
John Heaviside Clark's Field Sports of the Native Inhabitants of
New South Wales, uniquely bound in emu and kangaroo leathers is also
available. Our third title, an elegant type-facsimile of Watkin
Tench's Narrative
of the Expedition to Botany Bay was issued in 2004,
and is available in cloth and half-leather versions. Our fourth title is a fine facsimile edition of James Edward
Smith's Botany of New Holland (1793-94), with 16 fine coloured plates. Our fifth title is a new edition of the very rare private account of Governor Hunter's period of early Australian history, George Bond's A Brief Account of the Colony of New South Wales, first published in 1803, available in an inexpensive format in both hardcover and limp versions. Our sixth title is a fine facsimile of John William Lewin's very rare Prodromus Entomology. Lepidopterous Insects of New South Wales, first published in 1805, with 18 fine coloured plates. It is available in three versions in the style of the original bindings of the first and second editions of 1805 and c. 1821. Our seventh title, issued in 2007 a companion to our first, and in matching format, is The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay, complete with 56 charts and plates of which 31 are finely coloured from the rare deluxe issue of the first edition of 1789. Our eighth title, issued late 2009, is a new edition, finely edited by Robert M. Warneke, of the very rare whaling narrative by Robert Jarman first published in 1838: A Voyage to the South Seas in the "Japan" employed in the Sperm Whale Fishery, complete with portrait of the Author, extensive notes, chronology, bibliography and index.
Several other titles are in the early stages
of preparation. Further information
on Edition
Renard can be found here
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