Highlights
Here is a small selection of the highlights offered in 2026 by our exhibitors for you to browse and whet your appetite. These highlights are only a small offering of what will be available at the fair.
Our exhibitors will be uploading more highlights regularly up to the opening of the fair.
If you are interested in a highlight, contact the respective exhibitor directly. Prices are in Australian dollars inclusive of GST.
Premier livre de l'histoire de la navigation aux Indes Orientales
$25000
Amsterdam : Cornille Nicolas, 1598. The first edition in French of the major account of the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies, which was undertaken by a fleet under the command of Cornelis de Houtman (1565-1599). This voyage would lead to the creation of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and result in Dutch colonisation and commercial monopoly of the Malay Archipelago that would endure for three centuries. Crucially, it paved the way for Dutch discoveries on the western and southern coasts of Australia, and New Zealand.
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KINGSFORD-SMITH, Charles: A fully signed vintage photo-montage of the crew of the 'Southern Cross' shortly after their historic first trans-Pacific flight
$4000
The photograph is signed in ink by all four aviators; the blindstamp of the photographers (Broughton, Ward & Chaseling) is in the bottom right-hand corner. Charles Kingsford Smith, fellow Australian pilot Charles Ulm, and two Americans, navigator Harry Lyon and radio operator James Warner, left Oakland in California on 31 May 1928. The pioneering flight ended on 9 June in Brisbane, after a journey of 11,585 kilometres completed in three stages.
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"A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke" London, Humfrey Lownes, 1608"
$32000
This is the second edition of one the great examples of English music printing.
The lavish title page is rich in allegory and includes the classical figures of Ptolemy, Strabo, and Polybius, alongside representations of Arithmetic, Geometry, and Music. The design reflects the Renaissance view of music as not just a performing art, but also an intellectual and mathematical discipline.
The work is celebrated for its musical typography in a table-book format. Vocal parts are printed in different orientations on a double page so that several singers could read and perform from a single copy.
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Grosz (George) ECCO HOMO.
$25000
Malik Verlag, Berlin, 1923. First edition, regular book edition C. *Inscribed and signed in blue crayon by the artist (to 'Mr. Dumbrone'), dated 6.1.1922 on the title page. cco Homo was published in five formats. Copies of the two Deluxe editions A & B, in which the plates were signed, are extremely scarce. After publication, Grosz was prosecuted and fined for 'offending public decency.'The book is here accompanied by some related ephemera, including correspondence from the artist, all signed and within the original stamped and postmarked envelopes.
Sammelband of works on the trials of two renowned women: Mary Blandy and Elizabeth Jeffries, for murder in mid 18th century Britain
$10000
Blandy, Mary; Jeffries, Elizabeth. Bound collection of six 18th century pamphlets relating to the trials of Mary Blandy and Elizabeth Jeffries, published in Oxford and London, between c.1751-1752.
A fascinating collection of works on the famous trials of Mary Blandy for the murder of her father and Elizabeth Jeffries for that of her uncle by her lover, John Swann. Both trials generated a great amount of public interest in mid-18th century Britain and sensationalised accounts such as these provide a valuable insight into the manner in which women who committed crimes were perceived.
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Rare complete first edition of Visentini's print series with views of Venice after Canaletto, "crucial to forming the image of Venice in the mind of its visitors"
$74000
[CANALETTO]. VISENTINI, Antonio. Urbis Venetiarum prospectus celebriores, ex Antonii Canal tabulis XXXVIII.
Venice, Joannem Baptistam Pasquali, 1742. 3 parts in 1 volume. Oblong folio (ca. 36.5 x 52.5 cm). With 3 letterpress title pages printed in red and black with engraved vignettes by Visentini, the original engraved title page for the first series (Prospectus Magni Canali), a double portrait of Canaletto and Visentini by Visentini after Giovanni Battista Piazetta and XIV, XII and XII numbered engraved prints with familiar views based upon 38 paintings by Canaletto, engraved by Visentini.
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Death of a Salesman
$2600
Miller, Arthur 1949. The Viking Press, New York
Excellent Condition - Note: The boards are covered in original orange cloth with a profile of an old house in black on the front board and the title in black on a still firm, sound spine that is showing minor shelf wear at both top and bottom, with a little fading of edges and corners as well.
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The Ginger Man
$720
1956(First Hardcover and First UK edition and First printing). Neville Spearman, London, England
Hardcover in publisher's baby blue cloth in excellent, slightly shelf-worn condition, though with flecking and foxing on all edges, plus the first printed edition original pictorial dust wrapper with a black and orange illustration of a lounging male with orange title lettering.
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WODEHOUSE, P.G.: Psmith in the City. A Sequel to 'Mike'
$3000
London, Adam and Charles Black, 1910 (first edition).
Octavo, xii, 266, [2] (advertisements) pages plus 12 plates by T.M.R. Whitwell.
A very bright copy of this transitional and partly autobiographical novel, in which the heroes of the Public School tale 'Mike' find themselves caught up in the drudgery of the Edwardian banking system (although they do find time for cricket). Wodehouse was unhappily employed at the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank before finding success as a writer.
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Hemingway, Ernest FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS.
$3000
Pp. [x]+472(last blank); post 8vo; rebound in half brown morocco, the spine lettered and decorated in gilt between raised bands, with contrasting red & green leather author and title labels, marbled papered boards; top edges brown; fore-edges of leaves faintly foxed; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1940. First edition. Grissom A.17.1.a; Hanneman A18A. *Hemingway's most famous novel; the basis for a 1943 Paramount film starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman.
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Beautifully illustrated first accurate monograph on the larynx, heavily influenced by Galen
$45000
CASSERIO, Giulio (Julius CASSERIUS). De vocis auditusq[ue] organis historia anatomica singulari fide methodo ac industria concinnata tractatibus duobus explicata ...
(Colophons: Ferrara, Victorius Baldinus, 1601 & "1600" [= 1601]). 2 parts in 1 volume. Royal folio (40.5 x 27.5 cm). With an engraved title page with the title in a large oval scrollwork cartouche surrounded by and incorporating dozens of skeletons and skulls of people and animals, 2 full-page engraved portraits (of the dedicatee Ranuccio I Farnese, Duke of Parma, and the author) and 34 full-page anatomical engravings.
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Float - Anne Carson
$250
A collection of twenty-two chapbooks whose order is unfixed and whose topics are various. Part of a collection of contemporary literature being exhibited at the 2026 Melbourne Rare Book Fair.
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La Nuova Olanda e la Nuova Guinea delineato sulle ultime osservazioni
$9250
Very rare and important early map based on Cook’s first voyage discoveries on the east coast of Australia and only the third map to include those discoveries on a map solely devoted to the Australia continent.
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CRICKET. Souvenir programme for the 1948 Australian test tour of England, signed by the Don, his 16 fellow players, and the team manager, Keith Johnson. 1948.
$2850
“The Invincibles”. An impressive collection of signatures gathered by a steward onboard RMS Strathaird, the P&O vessel that brought Bradman and his now-legendary team to England. Pleasingly, Sidney Barnes, who averaged 56 with the willow during the tour, has signed with a pen rather than using his customary rubber stamp. One pamphlet. Original wrappers.
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Thomas Watling: Limner of Dumfries
$1200
Gladstone, Hugh S. Sydney: Reprinted for private circulation, from the Transactions of the Dumfrieesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 1938. Large octavo, 76 pp., uncoloured plates. Publisher's green cloth, inscribed "To D. Dickison with regards K. A. Hindwood 4/7/1958," scarce. Fifty copies were printed. Keth Hindwood distributed the book in Australia.
PROVENANCE: Dudley Dickison (1896-1967) was a well known Melbourne bibliophile who assembled one the finest ever collections of Australian ornithology.
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![Kreidolf, Ernst: Die Wiesenzwerge. Cöln, Verlag: Schafstein & Co [1902].](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/lindner.mainburg@t-online.de/Kreidolf-Wiesenzwerge-EA-4.jpg)
Kreidolf, Ernst: Die Wiesenzwerge. Cöln, Verlag: Schafstein & Co [1902].
$580
30,5 x 23,3 cm. 24 uncut pages with a colour-illustrated title page, a colour dedication page,10 full-page colour illustrations, 2 text illustrations and 2 (1 colour) end vignettes, illustrated endpapers in dark green and white, original boards.
Hess/Wachter A 3; Bilderwelt 487: “The >Wiesenzwerge< are not merely an idyll of nature-loving creatures; as the quarrel between the two families shows, they are also a realistic portrayal of human life, in which even conflicts are not excluded.” (Hans Ries). – One of th
Photograph Album of 1921 Victoria
$1000
B&W Photograph Album (43cm x 32cm) of Easter 1921. Victoria - Walhalla, Taralgon, Kilcunda, Phillip Island, Mount Dandenong, Beaumaris, Mentone, Botanical Gardens, Melbourne, The Grampians, Maryborough, Wangaratta. Total 126 Photographs. Some small panoramas. Each photograph captioned. Photographs in very good condition.
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Raleigh's search for Eldorado - "Brevis & admiranda descriptio regni Guianae"
$20000
"Brevis & admiranda descriptio regni Guianae, auri abundantissimi, in America, seu novo orbe, sublinea aequinoctilia siti: Quod nuper admodum, annis nimirum 1564 [i.e. 1594]. 1595 & 1596."
-Nuremberg, Levinus Hulsius, 1599. Complete with map and 6 plates.
This famous account was published soon after Raleigh's failed attempt to discover Eldorado. The account is punctuated by accounts of mythical peoples including Ewaipanomas (people with faces on their bodies) and Women Amazonian warriors.
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Louis Philippe, The King of France's Copy - "Field Sports of New South Wales"
$7250
"Field Sports, &c. &c. of the Native Inhabitants of New South Wales..."
-London 1813: First separate edition published without numbering to pages.
-Complete: 8,[10] with 10 hand coloured plates.
-BOUND FOR LOUIS PHILIPPE KING OF FRANCE AND DUC D'ORLÉANS (1773-1850)
The first significant work to be published illustrating the Indigenous Peoples of Australia. This copy bound for the Bourbon King Louis Philippe I of France, who was exiled in Britain during the Napoleonic wars (until 1815). Later owned by Horace William Wheelwright (1815-1865) who wrote "Bush Wanderings of a Naturalist"
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KOKOSCHKA, Oskar. Die träumenden Knaben. 1908.
$23500
“An account in words and pictures of my spiritual state”. First edition of the complete sequence of colour lithographs for Kokoschka’s fairy tale, his first graphic work. Oblong quarto. 8 loose colour lithographs.
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BROUGHTON, Rhoda. Second Thoughts. 1880.
$4750
A novel “on the same scheme as Pride and Prejudice”. First edition, this copy in a beautiful and unusual example of a Victorian cloth publisher’s binding. Two volumes. Original unglazed cloth.
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