Stream. Volume I, Number 1, July 1931

Melbourne, Stream, 1931. Small quarto, 48 pages. Three-colour pictorial wrappers a little stained and worn, but now expertly conserved; minor signs of age and use (shallow light tidemarks to most leading edges, some contemporary pencilling); overall, a decent copy of a rare item. The first issue of this short-lived avant-garde journal (it folded after Volume I, Number 3, September 1931), together with a copy of the original prospectus (small quarto, a bifolium with a three-colour illustration on the first page, slightly marked and lightly nibbled around the edges). The striking modernist cover design for the prospectus and the first two issues is by Jack Maughan. '"Stream" answered remarkably well a particular need - which will always be present in Australia - the need for good translations of current European writing. It printed translations, done by Australians, of stories, essays, and poems contributed to European periodicals by such leading overseas writers, artists and musicians as Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Fernand Leger, Arthur Honegger, Valentin Katayev, Mayakovski, Frederic Lefevre, Carmelo Puglionisi, and "Azorin" (José Martinez Ruiz). "Stream" also, through its poetry editor, Bertram Higgins, aroused interest in the spare, ironical intellectual poetry of Eliot and of the French symbolists who preceded him . "Stream" was unable to last for more than three issues, partly because of the depression, and partly because, in [editor] Pearl's words, "the self-appointed business manager got away with all the subscription money"' (John Tregenza: 'Australian Little Magazines, 1923-1954', pages 39-44, including a full-page illustration of the cover artwork of Number 3, 'the work of the gifted young Melbourne artist, Dominic Leon, who was killed not long afterwards in a street accident'). [2 items].…