THE RECIPE FOR RUBBER. A Fijian Romance.

First edition in book form, first printing. Publisher's original red cloth with titles in black on the spine and upper board, in the Tom Day illustrated dustwrapper. With small black and white title header illustrations by Norman Lindsay. A very good copy, the binding square and firm, the spine a little faded, the extremities with some slight bumping and rubbing, the lower board with a few shallow indentations at the edges. The contents, with a previous owner's name on the front pastedown, faint spotting early and late internally, are otherwise clean throughout. The closed text block edge is spotted and with a splash mark. Complete with the rubbed, nicked and creased dustwrapper which has a stain the upper right of the front panel with some small chips and general dustiness. Priced 2/- on the spine. Very scarce in first edition, exceptionally so in dustwrapper.

A tale of adventure, romance and science fiction, the first of three novels by the prolific traveller and writer of short stories Ralph Stock. As here, most of the his stories are set in Fiji and the surrounding islands, others are set in Queensland (where the author was the absentee owner of a pineapple farm), Thursday Island, Papua and Hawaii. A contributor to 'The Captain' and 'World Wide Magazine', some of his stories were adapted into screenplays, leading to co-writing credit on several films between 1930 and 1950. (Bleiler).