Highlights
Each year our exhibitors bring rare, beautiful and unusual items for sale.
Here are just a few of the exhibitors' highlights that were at the Fair in 2023!
There are a number of pages of highlights. To browse all the highlights - choose a page from the list below.
You can also check the highlights listed under your favourite booksellers in the exhibitor directory.
Although the 2023 Fair has now closed, some of these items may still be available from our Exhibitors if you wish to contact them.
Sappho
$180
Copper-line engraving by Carlo Gregori after Giovanni Domenico Campiglia. 1741. 255mm by 180mm (platemark) 420mm by 270mm (sheet).
Illustration of an Ancient Roman marble bust from 'Musei Capitolini', a series of engravings showing the sculpture of the Capitoline Museum in Rome.
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Les Quatre Livres de l'Architecture d'Andre' Palladio.
$5500
Rare French language edition of Palladio's famous Quattro Libri dell' Architettura, published in Paris by Edme Martin in 1650. This edition was the last to be printed from the woodblocks of the first Venetian edition of 1570. Prosaic practical advice for architects, not builders, hence an expensive book.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Printing and the Mind of Man, no. 92 (listing the second edition, with the same plates as here).
A very good copy with splendid provenance from the Berlin Royal Library (with stamp to title-page). Leading architects of the day would have consulted this very copy.
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Alastair: Wilde (Oscar) THE SPHINX.
$2750
Alastair: Wilde (Oscar) THE SPHINX. Illustrated and decorated by Alastair. John Lane, The Bodley Head, London, 1920. First edition thus, limited to 1,000 copies. *With the publisher's blind 'Review Copy' stamp at head of title page. The Sphinx was originally published in 1894, although in the introductory note to this volume, Robert Ross states that it was written 'before Oscar Wilde's first volume was issued in 1881'. Alastair was the pseudonym of Hans Henning Voight (1887-1969). $2,750.00
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LANGTREE, Charles W. A descriptive catalogue of rocks, minerals, and fossils, illustrative of the geology, mineralogy and mining resources of Victoria, exhibited for and on behalf of the Government
$1200
Octavo, 56 pp. Contemporary crimson morocco ornately gilt, gilt edges, a very handsome copy with an inscription on the front endpaper by James McEwan, founder of the famous Melbourne firm of ironmongers.
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On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
$12500
London : printed by W. Closes and Sons for John Murray, 1860. Second edition, second state (fifth thousand). A fine copy of the book which has been described as "the most important biological work ever written” (Freeman); "the most important single work in science.” (Dibner)
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Peter Trusler Yellow-bellied Sunbirds Nesting under a Queenslander, Watercolour, 26.5 x 18 cm
$8500
Peter Trusler's paintings for the book Birds of Australian Gardens (Rigby, 1980), are revolutionary, and rank among the finest Australian natural history paintings ever done.
In his Artist's Note (page 11) Peter says; 'Where possible I prefer to work from life. A number of the paintings are portraits of individual birds and all of the backgrounds and plants have been painted from actual specimens ... The paintings for the plates were executed with transparent watercolour and gouache.
Item #6569
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