Highlights
Each year our exhibitors bring rare, beautiful and unusual items for sale.
As we have not had a fair since 2019 due to the pandemic, our booksellers have curated many lovely and desirable books to exhibit.
Here are just a few of the exhibitors' highlights you can expect to see at the Fair in 2022!
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
Nomen / Noh Masks
$5500
A beautifully presented collection of 180 plates of masks used in the classical Japanese dance-drama Noh. Each plate, photographed by Naomi Maki, is mounted in an individual folder with tissue guard, housed in a portfolio case, and includes an index sheet. An accompanying explanatory volume written by Yasuo Nakamura goes into detail on the subject, as well as containing black and white photographs of the reverse sides of the masks.
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Volcano with Blue Lake and Plains 1979 by Shay Docking
$8500
Volcanic landscape by this important artist, often featured in exhibitions in Public Galleries in Australia and New Zealand but still little known in her home state. Shay Docking (1928 - 1998) was born in Warrnambool and grew up at Tower Hill. Her views of Tower Hill are in the Warrnambool Gallery collection. This was from her Volcanic Plains Series 1979.
It is Pastel and acrylic on paper on board, 76.2 x 97.8 cm,
Signed. See recent article by Rhonda Dredge, Inner City News
A dramatic modernist with a fluid line https://www.innercitynews.com.au/a-dramatic-modernist-with-a-fluid-line
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Fairy Tales
$3800
Fairy Tales by Hans Andersen illustrated by Kay Nielsen. The deluxe edition bound in full vellum limited to 500 copies signed by Nielsen, of which this is number 244.
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Bruce Chatwin. IN PATAGONIA. London, 1977.
$1200
First edition of the author's first book.
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[COOK] Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Seereisen des berühmten Capitain Cook.
$250000
Reval [Tallinn, Estonia] ; und Leipzig : bey Albrecht und Compagnie, 1780. [Bound with] Briefe aus England ... Reval [= Tallinn, Estonia] & Leipzig, Albrecht und Compagnie, 1780. Two works in one volume.
“Undoubtedly the first account of Cook’s death to be published in book form” (Beddie).
An extremely rare German account of the death of Captain James Cook in Hawaii on 14 February 1779, published in Tallinn in Estonia, together with a letter concerning the 1775 Spanish voyage to the west coast of North America by Bodega y Quadra (1744-1794), also in German, with many references to Cook.
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Gsell, Emile. - [Saigon] No. 2
$450
[Saigon]. [Circa 1866].
Albumen silver photograph 19.8 x 26.6 cm, image inscribed "No. 2." lower right, mounted on stiff card, 20.1 x 26.6 cm, a trifle wrinkled, but in good condition.
Emile Gsell learned photography in the military and probably arrived in Saigon with the French Expeditionary force. His studio in Saigon was in operation from 1866 until his death there in 1879. Gsell was fortunate to join the 1866 Ernest Doudart de Lagrée (1823-68) Expedition along the Mekong and was able to make photographs of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and become the first to market views of the ruins.
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