The Battle of the Books: the RUSI’s Fromelles Collection

Dr Jonathan Burdon, AM, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) member and President of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers will present a talk on The Battle of the Books: the RUSI’s Fromelles Collection at 401 Collins St Melbourne at 6:30 pm on Monday 18^thJuly 2016.
The talk is presented as part of Melbourne’s internationally-copied Rare Book Week. It surveys the extensive holdings of the 126-year-old Library that relate to the battle. Though Fromelles was a one-night battle, the debates that rage about it have generated a large published and un-published literature in book and ephemeral forms. Our holdings date from 1919 to the present. There are battle and unit histories, biographies of the commanders, plays, juvenile accounts, fiction, archival research reports, photos, battlefield guides, commemorative programs and many more. Dr Burdon will assess the historical value of each item – the collection will be available for viewing after the talk.

Fromelles had a short duration and a tragicresult but has become Australia’s best-documented battle of the Western Front.

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