Melbourne Rare Book Fair

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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GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, "VEDUTA DI PIAZZA NAVONA SOPRA LE ROVINE DEL CIRCO AGONALE", from "VEDUTE DI ROMA".

$6800

Sartoni Antique Prints

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI (Mogliano Veneto 1720-Roma 1778) "VEDUTA DI PIAZZA NAVONA SOPRA LE ROVINE DEL CIRCO AGONALE" [THE PIAZZA NAVONA WITH S. AGNESE ON THE RIGHT] 1751 Etching DESCRIPTION: Original etching from the series "Vedute di Roma". "Veduta di Piazza Navona sopra le rovine del Circo Agonale" with Santa Agnese church at right. Piranesi first general depiction of one of the most emblematic corners of Rome, Piazza Navona, built on the ruins of the ancient Circus of Domitian (or Circus Agonale).NOTE: Life-time Rome edition on thick laid paper, fourth state of six, with address..

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Les Paradis Artificiels: Opium et Haschisch

$4000

The Book Merchant Jenkins

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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Landfall, Environs of Sydney 1971 by Shay Docking (1928 - 1998)

$4200

Bridget McDonnell Gallery

The work consists of pencil drawings on four sheets of paper with measurements of 20.5 x 101.5 cm. The works are signed, titled "Landfall" and dated 1971. Shay Docking's work is represented in the National Gallery, Canberra, all State galleries, many Regional galleries and University collections throughout Australia and New Zealand.

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John Harris, Navigantium atque itinerantium bibliotheca: or, A Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels. Consisting of above six hundred of the most authentic writers.

$17000

Kenneth Hince Old & Fine Books

London, T. Woodward, et al., 1744 - 1748. Two volumes, thick folio, titles in black & red, complete with 61 maps, charts, and plates. The second edition of Harris's great collection of travels, preferred for its new maps prepared by Emmanuel Bowen. The most notable is Bowen's version of the Thévenot Tasman map, "A Complete Map of the Southern Continent surveyed by Capt. Abel Tasman". This is the first English map of Australia (and the first map of Australia since Thévenot in 1663).

Lucio Fontana

$150

Sainsburys Books

Scarce monograph on the Italian avant-garde, abstract artist.

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Phantastica: Die Betaubenden und Erregenden Genussmittel

$800

The Book Merchant Jenkins

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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地球儀. [Globe].

$1850

Asia Bookroom

A charming Japanese late Meiji period globe mounted in a metal semi-meridian and wooden base. The globe measures 20cm in circumference, the wooden base measures 6cm in diameter, while the total height measures 15cm. Although the majority of landmasses and borders are relatively close to reality, European holdings in Africa have been loosely demarcated at best. Japan and her freshly-acquired territories in Taiwan and Sakhalin have been highlighted in red. Though Korea was not yet a formal possession of Japan, the peninsula has also been marked with a touch of red.

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Vegetius Renatus (Flavius) THE FOURE BOOKS OF FLAVIUS VEGETIUS RENATUS.

$15000

Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller

brieflye contayninge a plaine forme, and perfect knowledge of Martiall policye, feates of Chivalrie, and whatsoeuer pertayneth of warre. Translated out of lattine, into Englishe, by John Sadler. Thomas Marshe, London, 1572. First edition. *The first printed English version of De Re Militari by Vegetius. (Earlier English translations exist in manuscript form). Written circa 390 AD and focusing on military organization (how to set up and fortify a camp, train and discipline troops, how to march, etc.), De Re Militari was highly influential in Europe after the Middle Ages.

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Dobbson's first book restricted to 200 copies and published when she was only 17.

$500

Archives Fine Books

Rosemary Dobson. Poems. [Mittagong, NSW]: Frensham Press, 1937. First Edition. Paper boards with black and white lino cut designed by Rosemary Dobson with her monogrammed initials : red paper label lettered in black : black cloth spine. The Press was established by the Australian children's author Joan Phipson after she visited some private presses in England and consulted Leonard and Virginia Woolf at their Hogarth Press. Leonard Woolf was later to praise Dobson's book as equal to any of the initial efforts by the Hogarth Press.

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Studies of a Bullock and a Hoof by William Strutt (1825 - 1915)

$3500

Bridget McDonnell Gallery

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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Orbis Terrarum Nova et Accuratissima Tabula.

$11500

Antique Print Map Room

Second state of van Loon’s famous, rare double hemisphere map of the world first printed in Amsterdam 1666, issued with the additions of the dedication to Charles II and his coat-of-arms for Moses Pitt’s English Atlas.

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雙六式國史早わかり. [Sugoroku - Quick View of Japan's History].

$650

Asia Bookroom

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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Barret (Robert) THE THEORIKE AND PRACTIKE OF MODERNE WARRES.

$15000

Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller

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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Marlborough, His Life and Times [Presentation copy] [OFFERED WITH] A.L.S. from Clementine Churchill and additional Churchilliana

$25000

Archives Fine Books

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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Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Illustrated by Erroll Le Cain.

$3750

The Antique Bookshop & Curios

LE CAIN, Erroll (Illustrator) THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. ONE OF 100 COPIES. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Illustrations by Erroll Le Cain. Calligraphy by David Howells. Paper by Philip H.Rowson. Lond. The Arcadia Press. 1972. Folio. Hand-bound by Zaehnsdorf in quarter vellum with seaweed paper sides. 55pp. t.e.g. Calligraphic text on seaweed paper pages. Ten striking tipped-in colour plates by Erroll Le Cain. No.50 of 110 numbered copies signed by the illustrator, the calligrapher and the paper-maker. Fine in the slip-case. Particularly scarce.

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, "LA TOMBA DI NERONE" [THE TOMB OF NERO]; From "GROTTESCHI".

$2750

Sartoni Antique Prints

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI (Mogliano Veneto 1720-Roma 1778) Italian school "LA TOMBA DI NERONE" [THE TOMB OF NERO] c.1750 TECHNIQUE: Etching, Burin, Drypoint & Burnishing DESCRIPTION: "The Tomb of Nero", from the series called “I GROTTESCHI” (Grotesques). In 1750 Piranesi collected in a miscellaneous volume published at the expense of the editor Giovanni Bouchard a collection of the works engraved by him up to that moment, some already published, others unpublished. The volume was published with the title serie "Opere Varie di Architettura Prospettive Grotteschi..."

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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee | Dee Brown

$3900

Somerset House Books

An American bestseller in hard cover for over a year post publication, selling many millions of copies and was translated into seventeen languages, Brown became a celebrated author of both fiction and non-fiction until he died in 2002.

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Manners and Customs in Manchoukuo

$2000

The Book Merchant Jenkins

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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Self Portrait

$270

Sainsburys Books

Series of Friedlander's self-portraits taken over the course of six decades.

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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

Kenneth Hince Old & Fine Books

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.

Alasdair Gray, Lanark

$750

Mount of Alex - Arapiles Mountain Books

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.

The Origin Of Species By Means of Natural Selection | Charles Darwin

$2950

Somerset House Books

According to the well-credentialled Forum Auctions in London:- “The printing of 1876 is the final text as Darwin left it. The issue was limited to 1,250 copies only. This number is as small as any, being equalled only by that of the first edition and is remarkably hard to come by (Freeman pp 80-81 of F401)" So, this copy is a very good example of the Sixth 'Eighteenth Thousand' Edition but note: the actual print number as quoted has recently been disputed elsewhere and possibly may have been as many as 2000 copies. Still, very scarce with about 150 years of age patina.

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