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.
![歌舞伎ミ二紙劇場. [Kabuki Miniature Paper Theatre].](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/books@asiabookroom.com/kabuki_highres-3.jpg)
歌舞伎ミ二紙劇場. [Kabuki Miniature Paper Theatre].
$1500
A delightful miniature paper theatre presented in a beautiful pictorial box (18 x 28cm). Contains a fold out stage, fifteen actors on stands (two extra stands also included), three double sided sheets of stage set illustrations, two sets of theatre curtain illustrations. This colourful kabuki miniature paper theatre was likely produced during the Meiji period. The set includes six different stage backdrops from famous kabuki programmes, including Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami (菅原伝授手習鑑). Players use the paper figures, such as Benkei from Kanjincho (勧進帳), to recreate iconic kabuki scenes.
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Bib and Bub Painting Book. New Stories by May Gibbs
$1250
Oblong quarto (210 × 305 mm), [24] pages of black and white comic-strip artwork plus text on the covers.
A rare and charming 'colouring book', the last of May Gibbs' Bib and Bub titles.
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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“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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Dickens (Charles) A TALE OF TWO CITIES.
$7500
With illustrations by H. K. Browne. Chapman & Hall, London, 1859. First edition in book form. Smith, Part I, 13, with all the internal flaws called for, but without the advertisement catalogue found 'in some copies'. *A Tale of Two Cities originally appeared in the weekly journal All the Year Round, from April 30 to November 26, 1859. It was also published in eight monthly parts (the last part being a double number), from June to December 1859. This was the final work illustrated by Browne for Dickens.
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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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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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A Selection of Gollancz SF Classics
Victor Gollancz, the publishing house, strongly associated with Science Fiction and Fantasy literature was originally founded in 1927 and became a prominent UK publisher, particularly through its imprint Gollancz Science Fiction. Notable authors published under the imprint include Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, J.G.Ballard and Ursula Le Guin.
Strugatsky, Arkady & Boris, The Snail on the Slope. 1st UK edition, 1980, $350
Heinlein, Robert A., Time for the Stars. New edition, 1985, $50
Mitchison, Naomi, Memoirs of a Spacewoman. 1st edition, 1962, $250
The Birds of Australia
$750000
London : printed by Richard and John Taylor for the author, 1848.
The first comprehensive survey of the birds of Australia, with hand-coloured illustrations and descriptions of 681 species, 328 of which were new to Western science and which Gould was the first to describe.
The finest of all Australian colour plate books, and Gould’s ‘greatest achievement’ (Wantrup).
Provenance:
Sir Edward Charles Stirling (1848-1919), Director of the South Australian Museum 1895 - 1913
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Peppermint Trees, Melbourne c1860 by William Strutt
$5500
Pencil and wash with measurements of 18.5 x 26.3 cm.
Signed and inscribed Peppermint Trees, Melbourne. Provenance: Private Collection, North Wales, part of a collection of works by William Strutt and Alfred William Strutt sold at Sotheby's, Chester, March 1991: John Ness Barkes & Edward Barkes
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Studies of a Bullock and a Hoof by William Strutt (1825 - 1915)
$3500
Pencil on wash with measurements 29 x 22.7 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, North Wales, part of a collection of works by William Strutt and Alfred William Strutt sold at Sotheby's, Chester, March 1991: John Ness Barkes & Edward Barkes
Probably a study for Black Thursday: A search for life through Cape Otway Forest on the memorable Feb 6th 1851. Plate 14, page 29, Victoria the Golden, Scenes, Sketches and Jottings from Nature by William Strutt, Melbourne, Victoria 1850-1862
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Self Portrait
$270
Series of Friedlander's self-portraits taken over the course of six decades.
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![台湾勤務日本人警察官手帳. [Japanese Police Officer's Journal].](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/books@asiabookroom.com/indigenous_highres_2025-07-11-042441_eyie.jpg)
台湾勤務日本人警察官手帳. [Japanese Police Officer's Journal].
$3250
Pocket book with hand-written journal records in graphite, 117pp. 10.5 x 7cm. A very rare and highly unusual example of a notebook kept by a Japanese policeman (junsa) in colonial Taiwan in the early twentieth century. On the upper cover of the notebook debossed characters name the southern Taiwanese region of 蕃薯藔廳 (Fanshuliao District), home to Rukai and Paiwan indigenous people. The entries span the period from December 1903 to 25 May 1904. Most entries appear to be Morimoto's day-to-day notes taken during and after his interactions with the indigenous people in the area.
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Barret (Robert) THE THEORIKE AND PRACTIKE OF MODERNE WARRES.
$15000
Discoursed in Dialogue wise. Printed for William Ponsonby, London, 1598. *'A compilation from foreign writers. It is said that Shakespeare in the passage "The gallant militarist that had the whole theoric of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practice in the chaps of his dagger" (All's Well That Ends Well, act iv, scene iii), was alluding to this book' [Cockle, page 57]. The table of 'forrain words' at the end is effectively the first English glossary of military terminology preceding the anonymously published Military Dictionary of 1702.
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THE FIRST DEPICTIONS OF THE CONSTELLATIONS IN A PRINTED BOOK. HYGINUS (Gaius Julius). Poetica astronomica.
$51400
First illustrated edition. Title on a2 printed in red, 47 half-page woodcuts of the constellation and planet figures, partially coloured by an early hand.
4to. (57 leaves (lacks first blank), 31 lines, gothic type, a few words in greek. Late 19th century calf-backed boards, spine with red and green labels lettered in gilt. Venice, 1482.
Phantastica: Die Betaubenden und Erregenden Genussmittel
$800
First edition of the psychedelic classic by German pharmacologist Louis Lewin (1850-1929). Set the standard for the classification of psychoactive drugs: Inebriantia (Inebriants such as alcohol or ether), Excitantia (Stimulants such as Khat or Amphetamine), Euphorica (Euphoriants and Narcotics such as Heroin), Hypnotica (Tranquilizers such as Kava), Phantastica (Hallucinogens or Entheogens such as Peyote or Ayahuasca). Later translated into French, Italian, and English, the 1931 English edition said to be Aldous Huxley’s introduction to drug literature.
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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.
Les Paradis Artificiels: Opium et Haschisch
$4000
First edition of Baudelaire’s Artificial Paradises, on the drug experiences of hashish and opium and their relationship with creative expression, being accounts from within the walls of Le Club des Haschischins and a translation and adaptation of Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.
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GOTHIC REVIVAL ILLUMINATION. FRENCH ILLUMINATOR. A suite of large neo-gothic illuminated initials.
$9250
Full-page frontispiece illustration with floral border and a central figure of a woman holding two shields in silver, blue and red; 29 illuminated initials in watercolour and gouache, gilded, and some partly with gold foil; all on wove paper. 1840-60.
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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The philosophy of Andy Warhol. (From A to B and back again). (Signed copy with drawing of a Campbell’s Soup can)
$7500
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. First edition. Octavo, boards in dust jacket, pp 241; a fine copy; the half-title is signed and inscribed by Warhol, accompanied by an original pen drawing by the artist of a Campbell’s Tomato Soup can, his most iconic image.
Andy Warhol’s seminal self-analysing memoir, filled with his reflections of youth and society which help give an insight into one of the most enigmatic and magnetic artistic figures of the twentieth century.
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