"John Oliver's Postojnska Jama of 1856, with an introduction by Trevor
Shaw." ZRC Publishing House, Ljubljana, Slovenia; 2013. ISBN
978-961-254-472-0. About 16.5 inches wide by 11.7 high, 183 pp. Free
73 MB PDF file from www.zrc-sazu.si/en/node/.
This is a color photographic reproduction of a bound manuscript volume
created by John Oliver in about 1855. The title of the original book
is, typically for the period, long-winded: "A Description of the
Caverns of Adelsberg in Carniolia, South Austria, being an Adaptation
of Alois Schaffenrath's Beschreibung der berühmten Grotto bei
Adelsberg, together with Illustrations and Supplementary Notes from
various Sources, the Whole Compiled, Translated, and Arranged by John
Oliver, who visited these Caverns in 1838." (He actually visited the
cave in 1837.) The book itself, which was purchased by Trevor Shaw in
1976, is preceded by twenty-six pages of introduction covering the
history of this book and the story of the German-language book that
was translated by Oliver, as well as notes about the Postojnska Grotto
itself during the nineteenth century, when the cave was known by its
German name. The old book itself consists of forty-eight pages of
elegant copperplate script--who can do that today?--in two columns on
lined paper, bound with a number of unlined sheets containing pasted-
in illustrations from various sources, and also incorporating a
smaller Appendix booklet of notes and comments by Oliver in his
regular hand. Trevor Shaw and the publishing house of the Slovenian
Academy of Sciences and Arts deserve thanks for making this unique
item, especially the text of Schaffenrath's 1834 now-rare guidebook,
widely available.—Bill Mixon
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A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is
absolutely fatal.
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