Edwin Barnard has trawled the holdings of the National Library of Australia and other sources to give glimpses of colonial Australia through advertising and retailing. This rich supply of material is shaped into digestible categories, with a varied selection of images and accompanying interpretative texts, supported by extensive quotations from contemporaneous publications. Although the objects for sale have changed considerably since the nineteenth century, and rabbit-ohs and bottle-ohs are now obsolete, the principal categories covered remain all too familiar today: fashion, food, household furnishings, health, quack medical treatments, sport, recreation, new technology. Indeed, anything that resourceful retailers could market and persuade the public to purchase appears to be covered here. The nearly 500 images reproduced in this volume clearly show the huge variety and quantity of items for sale in colonial Australia and the importance of agriculture, manufacturing, international trade, and an ever-expanding colonial market.

This is a book to dip into and to treat like an encyclopedia or source book, rather than to read straight through;one in which the reader can luxuriate in the colonial shopping experience.