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.
Doctor Zhivago
$550
1958 (First Edition English Translation). Collins and Harvill Press, London, England
Hardcover in publisher's red cloth with gold title on a firm rounded spine with virtually no shelf-wear on the book itself plus a purple and yellow non price-clipped dust wrapper showing the expected scuffing and chipping on all corners and edges, but now protected by removable clear archival covering.
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"AUSTRALIA: comprising NEW SOUTH WALES; VICTORIA or PORT PHILIP; SOUTH AUSTRALIA and WESTERN AUSTRALIA", 1853.
$3500
"AUSTRALIA: comprising NEW SOUTH WALES; VICTORIA or PORT PHILIP; SOUTH AUSTRALIA and WESTERN AUSTRALIA" Author: R. MONTGOMERY MARTIN Published by John Tallis & Co London. 1853 DESCRIPTION: Australia Comprising New South Wales: Victoria Or Port Philip; South Australia; And Western Australia Their History, Topography, Condition, Resources, Statistics. Gold Discoveries, Mines Of Copper, Lead Etc.. General Information For Emigrants, Merchants, Manufacturers and Shipowners; With the Latest Official Intelligence, Published Under The Authority of Her Majesty's Government by R . Montgomery Martin.
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MILNE, A. A.; SHEPARD, Ernest H. (illus.). Original artwork for Winnie-the-Pooh: “For some time now Pooh had been saying ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ in turn, with his eyes shut, to all that Owl was saying”. c.1956.
$115000
An original preliminary drawing in colour. This is a redrawn version of the illustration which appeared on page 49 of Winnie-the-Pooh (first published in 1926) and was presumably a preparatory drawing for The World of Pooh, an omnibus edition of Pooh stories, first published in 1957. Original drawing (113 x 127 mm) on paper, ink and coloured pencil, unsigned, mounted, framed, and glazed (framed size 327 x 327 mm).
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MORA, Mirka: Mirka's Colouring Book No. One
$2000
[Melbourne, Courtin/Fevola Publishing, 1970].
A charming and ephemeral production, rare on the open market. The National Library of Australia notes an edition of only 50 copies. This example is not coloured in.
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![S.C.U.M. Manifesto [1st UK, 1971]](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/orchardbookshopadl@gmail.com/20260717_123538.jpg)
S.C.U.M. Manifesto [1st UK, 1971]
Radical feminist Valerie Solanas achieved notoriety & exposure for her cause by shooting Andy Warhol in 1968. And, when selling her original self-published edition of SCUM Manifesto on the streets [1967], Solanas sold copies for $1 to women but charged men $2... at this year's Fair, we will be courting controversy by also implementing a two-tier pricing structure for this book!
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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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The First Modern Scientific Journal Printed in Asia - Batavia (Jakarta) 1779 - "Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap der Konsten en Wetenschappen"
$9000
The “Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap" was printed in Batavia (Jakarta) by the VOC printer Egbert Heemen. Printed in 1779, it is regarded as the earliest modern scientific journal printed in Asia.
This first volume contains a wide range of scholarship produced in the Dutch East Indies, including reports on smallpox inoculation in Batavia, botanical classification of Malay plants, and agricultural studies on sugar production. This copy is missing pages 1-4, but retains its original decorative boards.
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Chales Darwin's On the origin of species - first edition of 1859
$625000
An entirely unrestored, crisp and sharp copy of one of the most significant publications in the history of science, described as 'the most important biological work ever written'; and 'the most important single work in science'.
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First book devoted to stage design and technique
$57500
SABBATTINI, Nicola. Pratica di fabricar scene, e machine ne'teatri.
Pesaro, Flaminio Concordia, 1637. 4to. With the woodcut coat of arms of the dedicatee Cardinal Grimaldi on the title page and 49 woodcut diagrams and illustrations of decors and stage settings in the text, many illustrating the use of perspective to give an illusion of three dimensions and some showing mechanical systems, such as screens raised and lowered with pulleys. Decorated paper wrappers (ca. 1700?). [4], 89, [2] pp.
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“CARTE DE LA NOUVELLE-HOLLANDE”; LOUIS CLAUDE DE SAULCES DE FREYCINET; 1824.
$2750
“CARTE DE LA NOUVELLE-HOLLANDE” 1824
LOUIS CLAUDE DE SAULCES DE FREYCINET (Montélimar 1779- Loriol-sur-Drôme 1841)
COPPER ENGRAVING
Rare updated version of Freycinet’s seminal map of Australia which was first issued in 1807 in a larger format in the accounts of the French expedition under the command of Nicholas Baudin. Freycinet was the cartographer for the expedition and his map of Australia was the first to show a complete coastline of the Continent before Matthew Flinders’s chart which was issued in 1814 due to his imprisonment on Mauritius Island by the French...
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BECKETT, Samuel. The Unnamable.
$2150
London: Calder & Boyars (1975). First UK edition. 132 pp. Fine in fine dust jacket. Translated by Beckett from his original French text. The first separate publication of this novel in the UK. SIGNED by Beckett on the title page.
A complete set of the Australian John Gould folios
$1125000
The set is comprised of: Birds of Australia, 8 volumes; the rare Cancelled Parts; The Mammals of Australia, 3 volumes; A Monograph of the Kangaroos.
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WASHBOURNE, Thomas: A collection of 24 carte-de-visite portrait photographs of Indigenous Australians, circa 1860s, most from the Yarra Valley and North-East Victoria
$45000
The Aboriginal portraits of Thomas Jeston Washbourne (1832-1905) are rare on the open market and in institutional holdings. The images comprise a series of ten tableaux taken in or near Wangaratta around 1866, and fourteen further portraits, most likely taken at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station (and almost certainly also by Washbourne)
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Goes’ definitive Humanist Chronicle validates the Portuguese Empire in India
$190000
Goes, Damião de. Chronica do felicissimo rei dom Emanuel, 1566-67. Lisbon. F. Correa.
First edition, one of the rarest and most important Chronicles of the Portuguese expansion and discoveries in India, Asia, and Brazil, a fine copy preserving all title pages; this history of King Manuel, written by Portugal’s eminent humanist and chronicler Damian de Goes, is a monumental work, much of what we today know of his reign, arguably Portugal’s Golden Age of expansion, is based on this Chronica. A beautiful copy, bearing the author's signature on title-pages.
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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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"INDIA ORIENTALIS" cum Adjacentibus Insulis Nova Delineatione ob oculos posita. MATTHAÜS SEUTTER, c.1742.
$2250
"INDIA ORIENTALIS" cum Adjacentibus Insulis Nova Delineatione ob oculos posita. c.1742.
MATTHAÜS SEUTTER (Augsburg 1678- 1757) COPPER ENGRAVING [with contemporary hand-colouring]
The map extends from China, Japan and Persia in the North and in the south stretching from The Maldives east to Northern Australia. Of note, Australia continues to be attached to Nova Guinea, albeit with some hesitation, as the image extends outside the inner neat-line to convey this information - even though 20+ names are confidently engraved around Northern Australia Coastline...
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WODEHOUSE, P.G.: Tales of St Austin's
$8000
London, Adam & Charles Black, 1903 (first edition, first issue).
Octavo, [xii], 282, [2] (advertisements) pages plus 12 plates by T.M.R. Whitwell, R. Noel Pocock, and E.F. Skinner (the frontispiece with a tissue-guard).
An exceptional copy of Wodehouse's third book, a collection of 16 public school tales, here in its first-issue binding: an uncommonly bright example of a book notoriously susceptible to fading.
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![Sylvia Plath [The Plathery]](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/orchardbookshopadl@gmail.com/20260325_181159.jpg)
Sylvia Plath [The Plathery]
Orchard Bookshop is proud to be showcasing an extraordinary collection of Plath items, including a First Edition of The Bell Jar [with pseudonym Victoria Lucas]; Proof Copy of The Colossus [Plath's first book] & a lovely First Edition of Ariel
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Don Bradman Photographic Album
$1000
35 Press Photos of Donald Bradman to include a 1930s Don Bradman Signature.
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Gamiani ou Deux Nuits d’Exces
$1500
The first serious reprint of Gamiani, with the text revised against the original edition, and the preface, by Louis Perceau, for the first time attempting a bibliography of the much reprinted work. One of 300 copies, this one with the plates hand-coloured.
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Abel Janszoon Tasman’s Journal of His Discovery of Van Diemens Land and New Zealand in 1642 with Documents Relating to His Exploration of Australia in 1644.
$4750
“The most comprehensive account of Tasman’s life and achievement; ” (Schilder, Australia unveiled, p.157) of which only 200 copies were printed.
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Nova Totus Terrarum Orbis Geographica ac Hydrographica Tabula
$24500
Important c.17th hand coloured engraved world map on Mercator’s projection by Willem Blaeu, one of the finest and most beautiful examples of cartography produced during the Golden Age of Dutch mapmaking.
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