Highlights
Each year our exhibitors bring extraordinarily rare, beautiful and unusual items for sale.
Leading up to the fair, you will find here, highlights, selected by our exhibitors, of the wide range of items that will be on exhibition and for sale at this year's fair.
Bookmark this page and visit again as our exhibitors will be adding highlights over the next two months
If something is of interest, please contact the exhibitor directly. They will welcome your enquiry.
![中華書局印刷樣本. [Chung Hwa Book Company Printing Samples Book].](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/books@asiabookroom.com/china_highres-5.jpg)
中華書局印刷樣本. [Chung Hwa Book Company Printing Samples Book].
$1500
Delightful sample catalogue from Chung Hwa Book Co. in Shanghai with 38 unpaginated leaves including introduction, awards, and samples demonstrating the types of printing and printed illustrations carried out by this printing company. Chinese card binding with silk ties, 21 x 28.4cm. Presented in blue cloth-covered case with toggles, 29.8 x 21.4cm. The first 2 leaves include the company's logo and a foreword introducing the company and its expansion in just a few short years, up until Minguo 5. Following this there are 7 pages of photographic illustrations of awards received by the company.
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Salmon at the Antipodes: Being an Account of the Successful Introduction of Salmon and Trout into Australian Waters. By Sir Samuel Wilson.
$1750
London, Edward Stanford, 1879. Octavo, mounted photographic frontispiece 'Trout Pond at Ercildoune', folding map, index, lemon china clay endpapers, bright original decorated terracotta cloth, lettered in gilt, vignette of a salmon in silver on front board, small lozenge binder's ticket on rear pastedown, near fine copy. 'Third Edition'. Presentation copy.
City of Brisbane, Queensland.
$4750
Very rare, large c.19th hand coloured panorama of Brisbane depicting the wharves at Petrie’s Bight, from a vantage point near All Hallows School, by Albert Henry Fullwood (1863-1930).
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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.
ZLATA' PRAHA, Viktor Oliva, Czech painter and illustrator.
$750
VIKTOR OLIVA
(Nové Stašecì, [Bohemia] 1861- Prague 1928)
Czech painter and illustrator
“ZLATA' PRAHA” c.1894
LITHOGRAPHY
Original colour lithograph advertising “Zlata' Praha” (Golden Prague), a Czech illustrated literary magazine founded by poet Vítězslav Hálek, published between 1864 to 1929.
An elegant woman dressed in red in a golden frame, wearing an eccentric hat and walking with a copy of "Zlata' Praha" under her left arm.
Published by Imprimerie Chaix (Atelier Chéret), Paris.
NOTE: Original colour lithograph printed on "Arches" paper.Blank at verso; before stamps (before publication)
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![Marlborough, His Life and Times [Presentation copy] [OFFERED WITH] A.L.S. from Clementine Churchill and additional Churchilliana](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/orders@archivesfinebooks.com.au/15544_7.jpg)
Marlborough, His Life and Times [Presentation copy] [OFFERED WITH] A.L.S. from Clementine Churchill and additional Churchilliana
$25000
Volume I INSCRIBED, "To Geoffrey Hale from Winston S. Churchill 1955" (on the recto of the frontispiece) : Volume II INSCRIBED, "From Winston S. Churchill 1955" (on first blank) : autograph letter SIGNED from Clementine Churchill to, "My dear Doctor Hale" expressing her gratitude, "for all you did for my sister, not only during her last illness, but also for many years." (Chartwell, 13 February, 1955) : two Christmas cards from Winston and Clementine Churchill (one with autograph note from Clementine), and an invitation and order of ceremony for the presentation to Churchill on his 80th.
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“NOUVELLE-HOLLANDE; PORT-JACKSON: FAMILLE DE SAUVAGES EN VOfYAGE”; SEBASTIAN LEROY, 1824.
$950
“NOUVELLE-HOLLANDE; PORT-JACKSON: FAMILLE DE SAUVAGES EN VOYAGE.”
1824
SEBASTIAN LEROY [drawn by]
BOISSEAU & FORGET [engraved by]
Stipple engraving printed in colour, [finished by hand-watercolour]
DESCRIPTION:
Early and interesting depiction of indigenous Australians in Port Jackson, Sydney Harbour, N.S.W.
An Aboriginal family in the foreground, walking past a camp in the background where another indigenous family is cooking an animal on an open fire.
NOTE:
Without number 102; From first edition of: “Voyage autour du Monde” by Louis Freycinet.
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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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![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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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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J.R.R. Tolkien
Various items of interest for the Tolkien fan, including an excellent set of The Lord Of The Rings [Second Edition, 1966]; all three De Luxe Editions of Tolkien works [LotR, The Hobbit, Poems & Stories]; and even a scale model of Gandalf from the Weta studio [New Zealand set creators for the epic movie franchise]!
Dracula
$750
Stoker, Bram, Dracula, New edition. [1956]. London: Rider & Co.
12mo. Original red boards gilt in dustjacket; pp. 336 (last blank). Fraying to jacket, but a very good copy. This edition of the seminal vampire tale comes with cover art evoking the film portrayals, rather than the more abstract imagery of earlier jackets. The design closely resembles Christopher Lee’s classic interpretation, though it actually pre-dates his first appearance in Hammer Horror’s 1958 ‘Dracula’ by two years.
![Karski: How One Man Tried To Stop The Holocaust [Inscribed by Jan Karski to Dorothy Madden]](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/orchardbookshopadl@gmail.com/Karski.jpg)
Karski: How One Man Tried To Stop The Holocaust [Inscribed by Jan Karski to Dorothy Madden]
$1500
First definitive account of Jan Karski’s mission to alert the West to the emerging Holocaust. Published shortly after his wife [avant-garde dancer & holocaust survivor, Pola Nirenska] committed suicide in 1992, our copy contains a poignant message penned by Karski to his wife’s former dance colleague [choreographer & modern dance pioneer, Dorothy Madden] which carries a warmth still evident today.
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Rushcutter’s Bay, Looking South 1896 by Phillip Lee (1865 - 1909)
$4500
Phillip Lee 1865 - 1909 painted “romantic views of Australian scenery, notably coast scenes on the Illawarra Plains, the summit of the Bulli Pass, the Home of the Black-fish, Hawkesbury River, Fairy Bower, Manly, and the Blue Mountains." Refer SMH 27, March 1896.
His painting 'Native Sports 1880' was acquired by the NGA in 1969. 'The Pass, Bulli 1898' and 'Cascades at Fitzroy Falls, Moss Vale 1898' were sold by the Bridget McDonnell Gallery in 2006.
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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 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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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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Alasdair Gray, Lanark
$750
Gray, Alasdair. Lanark. A Life in 4 Books. 1st thus ‘Definitive Edition’,1985. Edinburgh: Canongate. 8vo. Original black cloth gilt in dustjacket; pp. [viii (last blank)], 562 (last blank), illustrated and decorated throughout by the author. No. 747 of a limited edition of 1000 copies, numbered, signed and additionally inscribed by Alasdair Gray. A little sunning and spotting, a very good copy.
The author’s first book, a novel written over a period of almost thirty years, combining realist and dystopian surrealist depictions of his home city of Glasgow. First assembled in one book in 1981.
Nicholas II: TSAR NICHOLAS II SIGNED DOCUMENT.
$5000
TSAR NICHOLAS II SIGNED DOCUMENT IN RUSSIAN, APPOINTING ALEXEI NIKOLAEVICH KUROPATKIN A KNIGHT OF THE IMPERIAL ORDER OF ST. VLADIMIR, APOSTLE AND PRINCE 1ST CLASS. Single sheet folded to form 4 small quarto pages; copperplate, with autograph subscription 'in gratitude Nicholas'; dated 8 August, [St. Petersburg], 1916. *The document details Kuropatkin's fifty years of distinguished service.
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An Austen family copy of the first edition in beautiful Regency binding. AUSTEN (Jane). Emma.
$100000
First edition. Three volumes. 12mo. Contemporary tree calf, single-rule gilt border, flat spines elaborately panelled in gilt. London, John Murray. 1816.
From the library of Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen (1829-1893), Jane Austen’s grand-nephew. It is uncommon to find Jane Austen titles in contemporary bindings and even more so with such intimate provenance.
Simon Raven, The Feathers of Death
$1250
Raven, Simon. The Feathers of Death. 1st edition,1959. London: Anthony Blond.
12mo. Original black cloth gilt in dustjacket; pp. 254.
Inscribed by author to endpaper. Toning and spotting, jacket price-clipped. A very good copy.
The author’s first book, a novel involving a same sex relationship in the British army. Simon Raven (1927-2001) is best known for his Alms for Oblivion series and his louche lifestyle, which features strongly in his work.
![[HOOKER (Joseph Dalton), his copy] HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE. Chart of the South Polar Sea.](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/mark@maggs.com/259958_02.jpg)
[HOOKER (Joseph Dalton), his copy] HYDROGRAPHIC OFFICE. Chart of the South Polar Sea.
$25000
First edition, first issue. Measuring 632 by 842mm. A little toned with old folds with ms. annotations in blue and red ink, small ink stain to upper margin, a couple of small, closed tears. London, Hydrographic Office, published according to the Act of Parliament, and sold by R.B. Bate [price] 2s.6d, June, 1839.
An important copy of this rare map, owned by Joseph Dalton Hooker, assistant surgeon aboard HMS Erebus on James Clark Ross’s Antarctic expedition of 1839-43.
