The 53rd Australian Antiquarian Book Fair
The Melbourne Rare Book Fair 2024 will be held Thursday 25 July to Saturday 27 July 2024
presented by ANZAAB with the support of the University of Melbourne.
About the Fair, History of the Fair
Featured Highlights
The first atlas on Mercator’s Projection
$1715000
The ‘Arcano de Mare’ is one the “greatest atlases of the world” (Wardington).
This sumptuous atlas, first published in 1646 when its author, Robert Dudley, was 73, was not only the first sea atlas of the world, but also the first to use Mercator’s projection; the earliest to show magnetic deviation; the first to show currents and prevailing winds; the first to expound the advantages of ‘Great Circle Sailing’ – the shortest distance between two points on a globe; and “perhaps less importantly the first sea-atlas to be compiled by an Englishman, all be it abroad in Italy” (Wardington).
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Australia's Elfin Sports and Racing Cars by John Blanden and Barry Catford
$170
A very good hardback copy. We will be bringing a collection of motoring books to the fair.
Arthur Phillips Reise nach der Botany-Bay
$1750
Rare German translation of Governor Arthur Phillip’s, Voyage to Botany Bay, printed in Hamburg 1791.
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Hume and Hovell Expedition
$13500
The first three editions of Hamilton Hume's account of his famous expedition with Captain William Hilton Hovell, which established an overland route between Sydney and Port Phillip. Outraged at what he considered to be a public lack of acknowledgement of his role in the expedition, Hume was impelled to publish this account 30 years later, in 1855.
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