At Cornell University they have online a book of Early Queensland Reminiscences y the daughter of Tom Petrie, the cover is to die for.
I guess these days there are places where you can just send a pdf and they will print it for you, has anyone had a go at printing and binding a book themselves, book binding used to be a trade.

http://archive.org/details/cu31924063745495

My baby sister does book binding and book repair. Me, I just take my printed books to the local Sandgate printer and get them wire bound – $2 for A5, $3 for A4.

As for Tom Petrie’s reminiscences, you can get them from Trove as they were submitted piecemeal by his daughter to the newspaper way back then. It’s a ripping yarn – I have a copy up in T’mba somewhere and we have one in the Historical Society Library.

I haven’t read it yet Geoff but I was struck by the Front Page artwork as being symbolic of the time.
There is also an 1835 map of the Brisbane settlement that I want to overlay on a Google image.

I’ve downloaded it in .pdf format for my own use. There’s things in there that I want to check out.

It’s an evocative cover, but that troupe of blackfellas coming out of his pipe would raise eyebrows these days.

I thought he was remembering them in his old age. Tom was possibly one of the most sympathetic of the early colonists towards the aborigines. He roamed with them and learned at least one local language.

My Father in Laws original trade was as a book binder. He’s forever hassling me to bring down old books so he can fix them up. I never bother and he gets cranky.

Ahh, yes, it is smoke from the pipe. Pipe dreams, maybe?

I’ve bound my own books; paperback (perfect), hardback (sewn, with boards), and leather. It’s not that hard.