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.
"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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From Louis XVIII's library: Racine (Jean) OEUVRES COMPLETES DE J. RACINE
$12000
avec les notes de tous les commentateurs. Edition publiee par L. Aime-Martin. Six volumes. Volume I stamp-signed at foot 'Simier R du Roi' [Binder to the King], the boards with decorative gilt and blind borders, arms of Louis XVIII in gilt at centre. Lefevre, Paris, 1820. First edition thus. *The works of one of the greatest French literary figures of his age. Louis XVIII (1755-1824) was the king of France by title from 1795 and in fact from 1814 to 1824, except for the 'Hundred Days' after Napoleon returned to power following his escape from Elba. Louis XVIII owned two large book collections.
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![We Have Always Lived In The Castle [1st Ed]](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/orchardbookshopadl@gmail.com/20260616_182204.jpg)
We Have Always Lived In The Castle [1st Ed]
$1950
"We Have Always Lived In The Castle" was Shirley Jackson’s sixth & final novel, with many declaring it her masterpiece.
A classic of gothic disquietude, First Editions of this title [and most other Jackson titles, to be fair] are keenly sought. However, the book design, especially the cream spine & predominantly white dustjacket, often lends itself to disagreeable discolouration. We are happy to report our copy is in exceptional condition for this title.
"[Shirley Jackson is] leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders" - Dorothy Parker
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Laurence Sterne, A sentimental journey through France and Italy
$1250
London, Becket and de Hondt, in the Strand, 1768. Two volumes, small octavo, the issue on ordinary paper (148 x 90mm.), xx, 203; [4], 208 pp., intermittent pale foxing, an attractive set with the half-titles and List of Subscribers, Sterne’s engraved coat of arms v.II D3v, one front endpaper gone, bound without the advertisement leaf in early speckled calf, several corners rubbing, spines gilt, red title labels. Rothschild, 1971: with variant (2) in Vol. I p. 150, and variant (1) in Vol. II p. 133.
Remarkable Spanish illustrated pedagogical treatise on music, ‘perhaps the most widely dispersed’ instructional manual of the period
$22000
Minguet e Yrol, Pablo. Reglas, y advertencias generales que enseñan el modo de tañer todos los instrumentos mejores y mas usuales como son la guitarra, tiple, vandola, cythara, clavicordio, órgano, harpa, psalterio, bandurria, 1752-1754. Madrid. Joachim Ibarra.
First edition, first issue, one of the most important (if not the most) pedagogical treatise of the 18th century of Spanish musical instruments, namely string instruments, wonderfully illustrated and exceptionally rare, peculiar namely because of its aim to teach students to play music without the assistance of a tutor or teacher.
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![Allemane, [Olivier]: Blobs. No place or year [2002].](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/lindner.mainburg@t-online.de/Allemane-Blobs2002-1a.jpg)
Allemane, [Olivier]: Blobs. No place or year [2002].
$290
14,5 x 9,8 cm. 13 sheets with 26 original screen prints, spiral-bound.
An artist’s picture book produced in a very limited edition (50–100 copies) by the painter and book artist Olivier Allemane, born in Buenos Aires in 1959.
Wiener Werkstaette - Andersen, Hans Christian: Zwölf mit der Post. Ein Neujahrsmärchen
$580
Including 12 colour illustrations based on originals by Professor Berthold Löffler and a calendar for the year 1920. Wien, Kunstverlag Anton Schroll & Co. G. m. b. H. [1919]. 11 x 9,3 cm. 28 pages (title page, dedication page, calendar and text) as well as 12 plates with colour lithographs, attractive colour-illustrated endpapers (moons and stars), orig. boards with colour illustration.
Heller/Vienna 292; Cotsen 429. - First edition in this form. Cover and endpapers redesigned; now with an additio
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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VISHNIAC, Roman: Peddlers Transformed into Beggars by the Boycott, 1938
$2000
A selenium-toned gelatin silver photograph (270 × 267 mm). Plate 4 from number 14 of 50 copies of 'The Vanished World' portfolio (New York, Witkin-Berley, 1977/ 1938). The peddlers in question were the victim of antisemitic boycotts organised by the Polish nationalist movement in the interwar period.
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Lyall, Alan. The First Descent of the Matterhorn. A Bibliographical Guide to the 1865 Accident & Its Aftermath
$150
First Edition 1997. Llandysul: Gomer Press.
8vo. original blue boards gilt in dustwrapper; pp. 674, with illustrations.
Signed by the author, Alan Lyall.
A comprehensive account of the tragic descent of the Matterhorn, following its successful first ascent via the Hörnli Ridge in 1865 by a party of seven including Edward Whymper. Four fell to their deaths on the way down, and the ensuing controversy dogged Whymper to the end of his life.
A fine copy.
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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The Anglo-Israelite
$1200
The Anglo-Israelite.
Monthly Journal, Volume III (March 1882 - February 1883, 240 Pages + Index), Volume IV (March 1883 - February 1884, 244 Pages), Volume V (March 1884 - February 1885, 240 Pages).
Printed G & J Black, Edward St Brisbane.
Rebound in cloth with new end-papers.
A one page note from previous owner written in pencil.
Very good to excellent condition.
Unlisted in Trove.
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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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A rare fourteenth-century medieval casket for a Book of Hours
$40000
This is an excellent example of a distinct corpus of book boxes from Catalonia (northeastern Spain), usually associated with the later fourteenth century. Made of wood, the exterior has typical incised leather decoration in a whorl pattern. The rosette decorations on the wrought-iron reinforcements are found on virtually all the known extant examples. The tawed leather interior, with its gently curved angles and smooth surface, is indicative of the precious contents which the container was designed to protect.
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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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Nostradamus’ Propheties, one of the earliest obtainable editions
$63000
Nostradamus, Michel de. Les Propheties de M. Michel Nostradamus. Dont il y en a trois cens qui n’ont encores iamais esté imprimées. Adioustées de nouueau par ledict Autheur, 1568. Lyon. Benoist Rigaud.
The exceedingly rare complete edition of the Prophéties bearing the Benoist Rigaud imprint, this is the second complete edition of Nostradamus's Prophéties, of the utmost rarity, here in a fine copy in a contemporary binding.
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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MAXWELL, James Clerk: A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (1881). J.J. Thomson's working copy
$250000
Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1881 (second edition, revised)/ 1873.
The personal working set of Sir Joseph John Thomson (Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of the electron), with extensive annotations in his hand made while editing the third edition of Maxwell's important treatise. Later provenance from his son, Sir George Paget Thomson, also a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
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GLAISHER, Cecilia & James. “On the Severe Weather at the beginning of the year 1855; and on Snow and Snow-crystals.” 1855.
$18500
“The most accurate observations published before the development of photomicrography”. First edition of this skilfully executed catalogue of snowflakes, their distinctive schematic forms engraved in bright colours. A collaborative effort between husband and wife, the study simultaneously influenced the sciences and the decorative arts. One volume. Contemporary cloth.
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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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![地球儀. [Early Japanese Globe in its Original Box].](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/books@asiabookroom.com/220581_01.jpg)
地球儀. [Early Japanese Globe in its Original Box].
$2750
A miniature globe produced in 1875 by Mori Kinseki, a cartographer, noted lithographer and Nanga artist. The geographical detail is finely printed in delicate colours, with clear and precise line work. In the early Meiji period, the globe carried considerable symbolic significance, symbolising Japan's opening to the world. By the 1880s, globes were being introduced into primary schools for the teaching of geography. This earlier example is a scarce survivor.
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![Sweeney Reed. Moments of Mind [Keepsakekeep e]](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/araps@alassoc.com.au/Sweeny-grouped.jpg)
Sweeney Reed. Moments of Mind [Keepsakekeep e]
$750
1st Edition 1977. St Kilda: Tolarno Galleries.
16mo. original printed paper wraps; pp. [iv], with photo portrait. Catalogue from the artist's first solo exhibition of prints held May 25th - June 17th 1977. No. 74 of 120 copies signed by Sweeney Reed, with offset-lithographic print on front cover. Rare self-published 'keepsake' from the boy at the centre of the Heide circle 'who had five parents or maybe none at all' (The Age). He took his life two years later aged 35. A fine copy.
