Around the world with State Library Victoria
To celebrate World Tourism Day (27 September), we’re taking a trip around the globe with some amazing photographs, photo albums, diaries and posters from our collection. Enjoy!
Our stories
The life and death of master magician Chung Ling Soo
Our stories, Performing Arts, Rare Books & Arts:
Magician William Ellsworth Robinson left behind his plain name and New York background and reinvented himself as the Chung Ling Soo, the Marvellous Chinese Conjurer, complete with an imaginative and fictitious life story, In the great days of vaudeville he achieved world fame and in 1909 embarked on a wildly successful tour of Australia and New Zealand. A decade later, still at the height of his career, Chung Ling Soo was mortally wounded on stage undertaking his sensational bullet catch trick.
![Mother Goose: or old nursery rhymes, illustrated by Kate Greenaway, engraved and printed by Edmund Evans, Frederick Warne and Co., London, [190?].](https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Mother-Goose-title-page-1-120x120.jpg)
Illustrated children’s books: Kate Greenaway (1846-1901)
Kate Greenaway (1846–1901) was an English children’s book illustrator. She was a remarkable success during her lifetime, pleasing audiences with her form and originality.
Indigenous Children’s Books
Today, Indigenous Literacy Day, we celebrate Indigenous authored and illustrated children’s books on a range of topics.
Exploring galaxies and rare books for National Science Week
From a first edition of Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1632) to the first Star Atlas ever produced (1729), the Library’s collection contains a number of early astronomical books.
Austen’s appeal: how Jane Austen went from anonymous to acclaimed
Jane Austen transcends time. Her work critiques 18th century England but it remains compelling to contemporary readers. Her terrific characters, realism, and her sense of irony and humour have earned Austen critical acclaim and a wide audience, inspiring countless readers and writers. All that for a writer who spent her entire writing career anonymous.
Nikola Tesla: the man who gave electricity to the world
Nikola Tesla was an electrical genius. He was a visionary who captured the imagination of engineers, entrepreneurs and the public with his futuristic concepts and vivid demonstrations of the power of electricity.
Get a taste of the cuisines of the world
There’s more to books about food than just recipes. They can touch on the histories of culture, travel and more from around the world. Our collections reflect this diversity.
Let us all combine: refugee stories in Australia
Australian history is rich with refugee stories. Our shores have long been a destination for those fleeing war and persecution: from Prussia, 179 years ago; from post-World War Two Europe; and from early 1980s Vietnam. Throughout it all, we’ve seen policies that encourage and restrict immigration.
Hope within the darkness: Anne Frank’s diary, 70 years on
This year marks 70 years since the publication of Anne Frank’s diary. It was first published in Dutch as Het Achterhuis (The Annex), and later appeared in English as The Diary of a young girl. It went on to sell more than 30 million copies, and has been translated into nearly 70 million languages.
