Highlights
Each year our exhibitors bring extraordinarily rare, beautiful and unusual items for sale.
Leading up to the fair, you will find here, highlights, selected by our exhibitors, of the wide range of items that will be on exhibition and for sale at this year's fair.
Bookmark this page and visit again as our exhibitors will be adding highlights over the next two months
If something is of interest, please contact the exhibitor directly. They will welcome your enquiry.
THE SECOND ENGLISH MIDWIFERY MANUAL. GUILLEMEAU (Jacques). Child-Birth or, the Happy Deliverie of Women.
$31000
First edition in English. Small 4to. 17 woodcut illustrations in the text. Contemporary limp vellum, title (twice) in early manuscript to the spine. London, by A. Hatfield, 1612.
A very fine copy in contemporary vellum of one of the earliest English midwifery manuals.
![Neuromancer [Signed Ltd Ed]](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/orchardbookshopadl@gmail.com/Neuromancer-Signed.jpg)
Neuromancer [Signed Ltd Ed]
$1250
Published to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of this SF classic, this is one of only 200 copies. Signed by William Gibson, the man who coined the term "cyberspace"... welcome to the matrix! As-new copy.
View More
Machiavelli (Niccolo) THE WORKS OF THE FAMOUS NICOLAS MACHIAVELLI, CITIZEN AND SECRETARY OF FLORENCE.
$10000
Written originally in Italian, and from thence newly and faithfully translated into English. John Starkey, London, 1675. *The first English edition of Machiavelli's works. The translation has been attributed to Henry Neville (1620-1695), author of The Isle of Pines. Includes Nicholas Machiavel's Letter to Zanobius Buondelmontius in vindication of Himself and His Writings, which was by Neville, not Machiavelli. Other works include The History of Florence; The Prince; and The Art of War.
View More
Signed Lady Chatterley's Lover
$35000
Octavo : pp. [iv] [368]: original mulberry boards with black phoenix : white paper label on spine : untrimmed and unopened : SIGNED by the author at the limitation page : with scarce yellow dust jacket. [Roberts 42a]. No. 336 of 1000.
View More
Salvador Dali, Hidden Faces
$150
1st thus, revised translation, 1973. London: Peter Owen.
8vo. Original black boards gilt in dustjacket; pp. i-xiv, 15-320 (last blank), with illustrations by the author. A near fine copy.
The famous surrealist artist’s only novel, written in 1944, describing the intrigues of a group of eccentric aristocrats whose extravagant lifestyle symbolises the decadence of the 1930s
![16回オリンピックメルボルン大会. [Japanese Newspaper Scrap Book on Melbourne Olympics in 1956].](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/books@asiabookroom.com/olympics_highres-3.jpg)
16回オリンピックメルボルン大会. [Japanese Newspaper Scrap Book on Melbourne Olympics in 1956].
$550
Scrapbook assembled by S. Tanaka in December 1965, 26 x 36.3cm, [38]pp, 4 hole string binding, hand-written title on front cover. This Japanese scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings from Japanese sources provides a detailed and engaging record of the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, capturing the entire event from its earliest stages to its conclusion. The scrapbook begins with profiles of all Japanese athletes participating in the Games, followed by reports on the opening ceremony, individual sporting events, and the triumphs and disappointments experienced by Japan's competitors.
View More
![さいころ独楽. 日本酒附録. [1930s Sake Advertising Campaign].](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/books@asiabookroom.com/sake_highres.jpg)
さいころ独楽. 日本酒附録. [1930s Sake Advertising Campaign].
$450
Sixteen delightful small porcelain spinning tops measuring 2.0 x 1.7cm in size each accompanied by ten handsome colour printed product labels heightened in gilt with soft purple cord ties (8.3 x 6cm).
These sake promotional giveaways and accompanying die-cut cards in the shape of the Order of the Golden Kite are advertisements associated with Meiyo-gura, a sake brand sold in Nihonbashi, Tokyo.
The advertisement describes a koma (spinning top), attached beneath the bottle top, which could also serve as a small entertainment item.
View More
![地球儀. [Globe].](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/books@asiabookroom.com/globe_highres.jpg)
地球儀. [Globe].
$1850
A charming Japanese late Meiji period globe mounted in a metal semi-meridian and wooden base. The globe measures 20cm in circumference, the wooden base measures 6cm in diameter, while the total height measures 15cm. Although the majority of landmasses and borders are relatively close to reality, European holdings in Africa have been loosely demarcated at best. Japan and her freshly-acquired territories in Taiwan and Sakhalin have been highlighted in red. Though Korea was not yet a formal possession of Japan, the peninsula has also been marked with a touch of red.
View More
Inheritors: a Novel by Brian Penton.
$850
Sydney, Angus & Robertson, 1936. Demy octavo, small bookseller's label on front pastedown, very good in original bright burgundy cloth lettered in gilt on spine with Norman Lindsay dustwrapper, few blemishes but in uncommonly good condition. First edition. Second volume of Penton's unfinished trilogy. Published as Giant's Stride in the UK. Very scarce with the fabulous Lindsay dustwrapper.
CURIE, Marie. “Radio-Active Substances.”
$31400
First edition in English of Curie’s famous dissertation, rare in such excellent condition in the original parts. Serialized across 15 issues of The Chemical News, it was applauded by the examination committee for being the greatest scientific contribution ever made in a doctoral thesis. Later the same year, Curie received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of radioactivity.
The Man with the Golden Gun | Ian Fleming
$1995
First Edition, First Impression, Second State, so not the extremely rare first State example so avidly sought worldwide (with a golden gun on the front board). Still, a rare book in this near fine condition, nevertheless and will certainly appeal to specialist Fleming collectors as well as keen Bond devotees.
View More
Crown Lands of Australia - Inscribed
$500
Well-bound copy of Campbell's Crown Lands of Australia with inscription from the author to the previous owners, The Geelong Mechanic's Institure.
View More
Chemical Amusement, Comprising a Series of Curious and Instructive Experiments in Chemistry,
$2000
The rare first edition with the 60 page, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Apparatus & Instruments, and with the author's calling card laid in.
View More
![Marlborough, His Life and Times [Presentation copy] [OFFERED WITH] A.L.S. from Clementine Churchill and additional Churchilliana](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/orders@archivesfinebooks.com.au/15544_7.jpg)
Marlborough, His Life and Times [Presentation copy] [OFFERED WITH] A.L.S. from Clementine Churchill and additional Churchilliana
$25000
Volume I INSCRIBED, "To Geoffrey Hale from Winston S. Churchill 1955" (on the recto of the frontispiece) : Volume II INSCRIBED, "From Winston S. Churchill 1955" (on first blank) : autograph letter SIGNED from Clementine Churchill to, "My dear Doctor Hale" expressing her gratitude, "for all you did for my sister, not only during her last illness, but also for many years." (Chartwell, 13 February, 1955) : two Christmas cards from Winston and Clementine Churchill (one with autograph note from Clementine), and an invitation and order of ceremony for the presentation to Churchill on his 80th.
View More
Les Fleurs du Mal
$15000
From the collection of actor and bibliophile Barry Humphries, one of 12 deluxe edition copies on Japon Imperial of Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil illustrated by Lobel-Riche with original drawings, the plates in multiple states, and in a unique fine binding by Henri Blanchetiere.
View More
DOUGLAS, William Bloomfield. Diary kept while captain of a mail ship, commander of a government coastal survey, and government resident of the Northern Territory.
$104500
The valuable journal of the overly ambitious and power-hungry Captain Bloomfield Douglas, encompassing three important aspects of Australian colonial history: the evolution of the colony’s communications with the wider world, the quest to survey its coasts accurately, and the placing of control over colonized fringes in the hands of ill-suited soldiers of fortune.
The three voyages of Captain James Cook
$50000
A magnificent set of the official accounts of Cook’s voyages, comprehensively illustrated with maps and plates. Finely bound by the venerable London firm of Morell in the late nineteenth century, this exceptional collection of the complete set of the voyages of Cook is distinguished by its full, wide margins and rich, dark impressions.
View More
The Resolution beating through the ice, with the Discovery in the most eminent danger
$3500
Important, early c.19th hand coloured aquatint by John Webber (1752-1793) artist on Cook’s third and final voyage depicting the Resolution and the Discovery surrounded by ice flows.
View More
Les Paradis Artificiels: Opium et Haschisch
$4000
First edition of Baudelaire’s Artificial Paradises, on the drug experiences of hashish and opium and their relationship with creative expression, being accounts from within the walls of Le Club des Haschischins and a translation and adaptation of Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.
View More
The philosophy of Andy Warhol. (From A to B and back again). (Signed copy with drawing of a Campbell’s Soup can)
$7500
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. First edition. Octavo, boards in dust jacket, pp 241; a fine copy; the half-title is signed and inscribed by Warhol, accompanied by an original pen drawing by the artist of a Campbell’s Tomato Soup can, his most iconic image.
Andy Warhol’s seminal self-analysing memoir, filled with his reflections of youth and society which help give an insight into one of the most enigmatic and magnetic artistic figures of the twentieth century.
View More
ABNEY, Hephzibah. Manuscript with hundreds of original watercolour illustrations of shells.
$26100
A conchological labour of love: an attractive album of “shells from nature” by the talented watercolourist Hephzibah Abney (née Need, 1758-1841) and a record of the conchylomania that swept Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This is the only recorded example of Abney’s shell illustrations and has re-entered the market almost 50 years after its last appearance.
Globe terrestre
$45000
Paris : L. C. Desnos & J. B. Nolin, 1760. A large and highly decorative French table globe from the mid-eighteenth century, rich in geographical detail that includes the voyages and discoveries of French, English, Dutch and Russian explorers.
Provenance :
Jean R. Perrette, New York based French businessman and collector, his bookplate pasted under the base of the globe.
View More
La Nuova Olanda e la Nuova Guinea delineato sulle ultime osservazioni
$9250
Very rare and important c.18th map of Australia based on Cook’s first voyage observations and one of only a handful of maps to be solely devoted to the Australia continent.
View More
