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.
Manners and Customs in Manchoukuo
$2000
A detailed and thoroughly illustrated guide in English to life and culture in Manchuria. Published at the height of WWII, depicting a completely normal world inside the Japanese puppet state with chapters on races and tribes, costumes, residential houses, food and drink, salutation and etiquette, tastes and pastimes, annual festivals, religions, symbols of religious faith, and happy and unhappy affairs.
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![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.
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!["QUEENSLAND CENSUS DISTRICTS AND SUB-DISTRICT 1891"; Collection of 76 [of 77] folded maps. Printed at the Govt. Engraving and Lithographic Office.](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/sartoniprints@yahoo.it/QLD-ACensus-Label.jpg)
"QUEENSLAND CENSUS DISTRICTS AND SUB-DISTRICT 1891"; Collection of 76 [of 77] folded maps. Printed at the Govt. Engraving and Lithographic Office.
$6500
"QUEENSLAND CENSUS DISTRICTS AND SUB-DISTRICT 1891"
Printed at the Govt. Engraving and Lithographic Office.
W. KNIGHT [engraver]
DESCRIPTION:
"QUEENSLAND CENSUS DISTRICTS AND SUB-DISTRICT 1891", 76 [of 77] folded maps.
60 [of 61] numbered and 16 unnumbered maps, + index map and index list; with the original cover labeled:
"MAPS to company REGISTER-GENERAL REPORT CENSUS 1892".
Map n:5 [Etheridge] missed.
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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.
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Ah! Nana
$1200
Complete set of the French women’s comic magazine. Ah!Nana ran for nine issues, each with its own theme, coming to a short end following the magazine being banned to minors after the publication of the eighth issue devoted to homosexuality. This led the editorial team to go all in on the ninth and final issue, devoting it to incest, leading to the French censorship Commission banning the publication, labelling it pornographic.
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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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Boyle (Roger, Earl of Orrey) A TREATISE OF THE ART OF WAR.
$4500
Printed by T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringham, London, 1677. First edition. Wing O499; ESTC R200. *The frontispiece portrait of a warlike Charles II astride a horse, with troops in military formation and a battle fleet in the background, was engraved by Abraham de Blois. Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery (1621-1679), was an Anglo-Irish soldier and politician who held senior positions under the Commonwealth and later under Charles II. This work includes chapters on choosing, educating and disciplining soldiers, the ordering of garrisons, the marching and camping of an army, and battles.
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Nova, et Integra Universi Orbis Descriptio.
$65000
Oronce Fine’s famous double cordiform map of the world is acknowledged as being one of the most striking and influential world maps published in the c.16th.
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First World War recruitment leaflet distributed by aeroplane
$550
'If YOU were Hit by a Bomb from an Enemy Aeroplane you would Realise that we are at War!'
Adelaide, printed by 'Advertiser' Print for J. Newland, State Recruiting Committee, 27 October 1917.
Robert Graham Carey, manager of the Ballarat Flying School, dropped this leaflet over Adelaide from his 60hp Bleriot monoplane in October 1917.
Metabolism in Architecture
$350
Details the 1960s Japanese architectural movement which envisioned cities as evolving organisms. Led by Tange, Kurokawa, Kikutake, and Maki, it championed modular, adaptable, and sustainable designs.
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Ex Libris of Yasushi Ohmoto by Cliff Parfit
$395
The Ex-Libris of Yasuhi Ohmoto. By Cliff Parfit
Tokyo. English Centre. 1982.
16 tipped-in colour bookplates.
Signed by the artist.
Fine in cloth case.
First time this pair have been offered for sale
$15000
Two first edition volumes from the library of Lady Constance Malleson: The Waves [offered with] The Rainbow [together with] A small archive of personal correspondence from the executrix of Malleson’s estate (Phyllis Urch) to a friend. The two books are from the library of Lady Constance Malleson: pacifist, actress, and long-term lover of Bertrand Russell.
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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.
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Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov
$530
This is the First UK Edition of Lolita, which is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. Remarkably scarce.
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Poor Fellow My Country. By Xavier Herbert
$900
Poor Fellow My Country
By Xavier Herbert
First Signed Limited Edition
No.14 of 50. Half leather
One of 3 copies personally signed on the book and not on an affixed label.
The Karla Trilogy | Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People | John Le Carre
$1800
All First editions and First UK impressions. Together, the trilogy is in a near-fine state overall. Arguably the greatest works of fiction dealing with the Cold War ever written, unified by the ubiquitous Smiley and his Russian equivalent Karla.
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A treatise on the culture of the vine
$35000
Australia [i.e. Sydney] : R. Howe, Government Printer, 1825. The first edition of the first Australian book on wine. In the introduction Busby explains that Australia had a viable future as a major wine producing country, a statement that justifies the epithet for him of ‘prophet of Australian viticulture’.
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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
![BEAUTIFUL NATURAL HISTORY ILLUSTRATIONS. CAPESTRO (Federico). [Three illustrated notebooks.]](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/mark@maggs.com/239832_02.jpg)
BEAUTIFUL NATURAL HISTORY ILLUSTRATIONS. CAPESTRO (Federico). [Three illustrated notebooks.]
$12500
Idrografia. Prospetto dei principali fiumi e laghi della Terra [e monti e vulcani]. Ms. in ink. 10 full page hand-coloured illustrations (9 on vellum), gold highlights throughout. Folio. Cloth-backed marbled boards. 36pp. “Premiato con diploma di 2o grada dalla Societa Patria in data 30 Novembre 1874.” [With:] Scienze naturali 1869. Gli ucceli. Ms. in black, red & blue ink. 39 hand-coloured drawings. Small folio. Cloth-backed marbled boards. 71pp. [And:] Storia degli animal di Capestro Federico A[nn]o 1869. Ms. in ink. 146 drawings. Small folio. Cloth-backed marbled boards. 108pp. 1874.
![雙六式國史早わかり. [Sugoroku - Quick View of Japan's History].](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/books@asiabookroom.com/216826_01.jpg)
雙六式國史早わかり. [Sugoroku - Quick View of Japan's History].
$650
Large colour folding sugoroku game, 93 x 125cm.
This unique and visually rich sugoroku-style educational chart was published in 1927 in Shizuoka by Yamamura Azusa. Intending to present Japanese history through the lens of the imperial lineage, Yamamura sought to make the subject accessible and engaging for children by structuring it as a game. Using the familiar sugoroku board format, he transforms historical chronology into a path of progress, starting with the mythological creation of Japan by the sun goddess Amaterasu at the centre of the chart.
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Self Portrait
$270
Series of Friedlander's self-portraits taken over the course of six decades.
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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.
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