Highlights
Each year our exhibitors bring extraordinarily rare, beautiful and unusual items for sale.
Here is a selection of the items offered in 2025 by our exhibitors. These may still be available for purchase. If interested, contact the respective exhibitor directlyCloser to the 2026 Fair, new highlights of what will be on offer in 2026 will be posted. Bookmark this page and visit again to see the 2026 highlights.
Silva: or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in his Majesty’s Dominions
$1500
One of the most influential works on forestry ever published. The first Hunter edition with illustrations by John Miller.
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Bradshaw Art of the Kimberley By Grahame L Walsh
$2300
Bradshaw Art of the Kimberley
By Grahame L.Walsh
Toowong. 2000.
Oblong folio. Profusely illustrated in colour with ancient Aboriginal rock art.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee | Dee Brown
$3900
An American bestseller in hard cover for over a year post publication, selling many millions of copies and was translated into seventeen languages, Brown became a celebrated author of both fiction and non-fiction until he died in 2002.
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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.
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Hobart Town
$2450
Rare c.19th detailed hand coloured engraved panorama of Hobart published in 1879. From the original edition of the Australasian Sketcher.
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CHURCHILL (Winston S.) The Second World War: The Gathering Storm; The Finest Hour; The Grand Alliance; The Hinge of Fate; Closing the Ring; Triumph and Tragedy.
$30750
First editions, first printings. Six volumes. Numerous maps and diagrams, some folding and others full-page, throughout each volume. 8vo. Original black cloth, spines lettered in gilt, top edges in red, supplied dust jackets. London, Cassell & Co. Ltd. 1948-1954.
Inscribed to Grace Hamblin, "the longest-serving member of Churchill’s secretarial staff."
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, "VEDUTA DI PIAZZA NAVONA SOPRA LE ROVINE DEL CIRCO AGONALE", from "VEDUTE DI ROMA".
$6800
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI
(Mogliano Veneto 1720-Roma 1778)
"VEDUTA DI PIAZZA NAVONA SOPRA LE ROVINE DEL CIRCO AGONALE"
[THE PIAZZA NAVONA WITH S. AGNESE ON THE RIGHT]
1751
Etching
DESCRIPTION:
Original etching from the series "Vedute di Roma".
"Veduta di Piazza Navona sopra le rovine del Circo Agonale" with Santa Agnese church at right.
Piranesi first general depiction of one of the most emblematic corners of Rome, Piazza Navona, built on the ruins of the ancient Circus of Domitian (or Circus Agonale).NOTE:
Life-time Rome edition on thick laid paper, fourth state of six, with address..
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MAUGHAM, W.S. The Razor's Edge.
$5000
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1944. Limited Edition. Octavo : pp. [viii] 343 [3] (blank) : SIGNED : No. 308 of 750 copies : publisher's cloth over bevelled boards, black and gilt title panel to spine. Tip of pp. 145-148 creased. Near fine.
“The fact that a great many people believe something is no guarantee of its truth.” — Maugham.
This limited, signed edition preceded both the American and English trade editions. A bright copy of Maugham's masterpiece of human desire, ambition and success.
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F.S. Smythe, The Valley of Flowers
$750
Smythe, F.S. [Frank Sydney]. The Valley of Flowers. 1st limited edition. 1938. London: Hodder & Stoughton.4to. Original cream cloth gilt; pp. xxiv (last blank), 322, with tissue-guarded colour photographic plates + 2 maps. [Neate S133]. No. 105 of a limited edition of 250 large format copies signed by the author. A little toned, but a very good copy. Originally issued in a presentation box with a sachet of seeds, both missing as usual. In 1931, Frank S. Smythe, Eric Shipton and R. L. Holdsworth discovered the valley by chance returning from a successful expedition to Kamet in Northern India.
![Post Office [1st UK]](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/orchardbookshopadl@gmail.com/Bukowski-w.jpg)
Post Office [1st UK]
$1000
Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski at his finest [read most disgusting, most hilarious, most obscene, etc]. Post Office was Bukowski's first novel and his best. "It began as a mistake. It was Christmas season and I learned from the drunk up the hill, who did the trick every Christmas, that they would hire damned near anybody..."
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Rainer Knaust: Precious Objects
$350
Exhibition catalogue. 44 wooden blocks housed in wooden case. Limited to 300 signed and numbered copies. Exhibited at the Municiple Gallery at the German Blade Museum, Sollingen, March 17 - April 28, 1996.
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Dante Alighieri: La Commedia. Comm. Jacopo della Lana.
$445000
"La prima edizione commentata della Divina Commedia" (Mambelli), published only five years after the editio princeps (Foligno 1472). An exceptionally large and crisp copy, completely unsophisticated in its first binding
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AUSTEN, Jane; THOMSON, Hugh (illus.). Pride and Prejudice.
$15700
First fully illustrated edition, one of 250 large paper copies issued in Britain with the illustrations specially printed on China paper and laid down; a further 25 copies were released in the US. This fine Rivière binding displays the very highest standards of the bindery’s craftsmanship.
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Cruikshank (George) CRUIKSHANK'S WATER COLOURS.
$1200
A. & C. Black, London, 1903. De luxe edition, limited to 300 numbered copies signed by the publisher. Inman 227. *From the library of Australian pathologist and medical historian, Professor Harold Dallas Attwood, with his bookplate on verso of upper free endpaper; later from the library of David Levine, Sydney, whose book label is above Attwood’s. The main text consists of extracts from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist; William Harrison Ainsworth's The Miser's Daughter; and W. H. Maxwell's History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798; all with Cruikshank's accompanying illustrations.
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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.
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Bony Buys a Woman By Arthur Upfield (Signed)
$350
BONY BUYS A WOMAN
By Arthur Upfield
Lond. Heinemann. 1957.
First Edition. Scarce.
Inscribed & signed by Arthur Upfield
A Winter Ship
$5750
Plath’s first independently published poem - one of only 60 copies. Depicting a desolate scene across an unnamed harbor, this beautifully produced booklet is a true literary treasure.
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![GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, "LA TOMBA DI NERONE" [THE TOMB OF NERO]; From "GROTTESCHI".](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/sartoniprints@yahoo.it/PIRA-Grottesque1.jpg)
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, "LA TOMBA DI NERONE" [THE TOMB OF NERO]; From "GROTTESCHI".
$2750
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI
(Mogliano Veneto 1720-Roma 1778)
Italian school
"LA TOMBA DI NERONE"
[THE TOMB OF NERO]
c.1750
TECHNIQUE: Etching, Burin, Drypoint & Burnishing
DESCRIPTION:
"The Tomb of Nero", from the series called “I GROTTESCHI” (Grotesques).
In 1750 Piranesi collected in a miscellaneous volume published at the expense of the editor Giovanni Bouchard a collection of the works engraved by him up to that moment, some already published, others unpublished. The volume was published with the title serie "Opere Varie di Architettura Prospettive Grotteschi..."
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The Insane Root: A Romance of a Strange Country by Mrs. Campbell Praed.
$1500
New York, Funk & Wagnalls, [1902]. Octavo, frontispiece with tissue guard, paper tanning but very good in original eucalypt grey ribbed pictorial cloth, bottom & fore-edges uncut. Second US impression in the year of first publication with fantastic mandrake root design on upper board and spine. Noted for her Australian romances, The Insane Root, with its body swapping theme, is one of several Rosa Praed novels dealing with the occult and spiritualism &c. Very scarce in any contemporary edition. Bleiler, 1337.
COOK, James - SAMWELL, David. A Narrative of the Death of Captain James Cook.
$365800
First edition of this black tulip in the history of Cook. Samwell sailed with Cook as surgeon on the Discovery and his is the “fullest, most detailed and most objective” account of Cook’s death, scrupulously gathered from eyewitnesses (Holmes). We have traced five copies only at auction in the last 50 years, including the present copy.
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AUSTEN, Jane - TEMPLE BOOK CLUB. Remarkable manuscript archive of a private subscribers’ library.
$62700
An intriguing collection of book lists, invoices, and receipts from the Temple Book Club, which operated between 1812 and 1819, a period during which first editions of works such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park were acquired at discounted rates and circulated among its members, a select group of barristers from one of London’s Inns of Court.
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