Melbourne Rare Book Fair

The avi-fauna of Australia : comprising Gould’s Birds of Australia and all other birds discovered in the Australian colonies since 1850

$35000

Douglas Stewart Fine Books

[Sydney?] : [G.J. Broinowski?], 1897. One of the rarest publications on Australian ornithology, one of only two known copies, the only one in private hands. In addition to its obvious desirability as an Australian colour plate book of almost unprocurable rarity, The avi-fauna of Australia is also meaningful insight into the debt Broinowski felt to Gould, and the respect he afforded the scientific community who contributed to our collective understanding of Australian ornithology. Provenance: Quentin Keynes (1921 – 2003), explorer, filmmaker, and great-grandson of Charles Darwin.

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The Beatles: Autographed Magazine by all four Beatles.

$31300

KOTTE Autographs

A February 1966 edition of the French magazine ‘La Semaine’ that has been autographed on the front cover by The Beatles in black felt tipped pen. The photo on the front of the magazine pictures the famous image of The Beatles in their famous grey collarless suits which was taken by Dezo Hoffman in his studio in Wardour Street, London, England in April 1963. The autographs were obtained during The Beatles tour of Germany which took place between 24th and 26th June 1966.

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さいころ独楽. 日本酒附録. [1930s Sake Advertising Campaign].

$450

Asia Bookroom

Sixteen delightful small porcelain spinning tops measuring 2.0 x 1.7cm in size each accompanied by ten handsome colour printed product labels heightened in gilt with soft purple cord ties (8.3 x 6cm). These sake promotional giveaways and accompanying die-cut cards in the shape of the Order of the Golden Kite are advertisements associated with Meiyo-gura, a sake brand sold in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. The advertisement describes a koma (spinning top), attached beneath the bottle top, which could also serve as a small entertainment item.

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Signed Lady Chatterley's Lover

$35000

Archives Fine Books

Octavo : pp. [iv] [368]: original mulberry boards with black phoenix : white paper label on spine : untrimmed and unopened : SIGNED by the author at the limitation page : with scarce yellow dust jacket. [Roberts 42a]. No. 336 of 1000.

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Keynes (John Maynard) THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT INTEREST AND MONEY.

$15000

Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller

Macmillan and Co., Limited, London, 1936. First edition. Printing and the Mind of Man 423. *Landmark work by the most influential economist of the twentieth century: 'the work on which his fame as the oustanding economist of his generation must rest' [Dictionary of National Biography].

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Simon Raven, The Feathers of Death

$1250

Mount of Alex - Arapiles Mountain Books

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.

CHURCHILL (Winston S.) The Second World War: The Gathering Storm; The Finest Hour; The Grand Alliance; The Hinge of Fate; Closing the Ring; Triumph and Tragedy.

$30750

Maggs Bros Ltd

First editions, first printings. Six volumes. Numerous maps and diagrams, some folding and others full-page, throughout each volume. 8vo. Original black cloth, spines lettered in gilt, top edges in red, supplied dust jackets. London, Cassell & Co. Ltd. 1948-1954. Inscribed to Grace Hamblin, "the longest-serving member of Churchill’s secretarial staff."

Self Portrait

$270

Sainsburys Books

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

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Pedro Fernández de Quirós: Manuscript memorial to Philip III of Spain.

$800000

INLIBRIS

A radical abolitionist in the age of Shakespeare: original Quiròs manuscript memorial arguing against the Black slave trade. [Madrid, possibly before September 1611]. An exceptional document in the history of Portuguese colonization of South America, and one of the greatest rarities in the field of voyages and exploration: an original manuscript petition, not recorded in any other copy, written to the King of Spain by the Portuguese-Spanish seafarer and discoverer Pedro Fernández de Quirós (Queirós), proposing to settle the "Austral lands" for the Spanish crown.

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The Waves [1931]; To The Lighthouse [1927]

ORCHARD BOOKSHOP

Two uniformly bound copies of key works by Virginia Woolf. Our copy of The Waves is the 1931 First Edition and To The Lighthouse is the Secend Impression, published in June 1927 [the month following the first printing].

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Chemical Amusement, Comprising a Series of Curious and Instructive Experiments in Chemistry,

$2000

The Book Merchant Jenkins

The rare first edition with the 60 page, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Apparatus & Instruments, and with the author's calling card laid in.

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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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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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‘INCUNABLE’ OF COMIC PRINTING IN YOKOHAMA. WIRGMAN (Charles), editor. Japan Punch.

$13500

Maggs Bros Ltd

First edition. 42 issues. Lithograph illustrations throughout. Folio. Original flexible boards Light creasing and occasional water-staining. A few marginal pencil annotations in a contemporary hand. Yokohama, R. Meiklejohn, 1876-1880.

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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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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齊白石畫集. [Collection of 22 Watercolours].

$1950

Asia Bookroom

Biography of Qi Baishi (in Chinese) + 22 colour woodblock prints with manuscript titles and red artist's chop, 31.5 x 22.5 cms, traditional Chinese leporello/concertina binding, floral silk brocade boards with silk ties. A fine compilation of woodblock prints: flowers and animals, by the renowned artist Qi Baishi (1864-1957).

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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.

Cruikshank (George) CRUIKSHANK'S WATER COLOURS.

$1200

Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller

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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AUSTEN, Jane; THOMSON, Hugh (illus.). Pride and Prejudice.

$15700

Peter Harrington

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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Nova, et Integra Universi Orbis Descriptio.

$65000

Antique Print Map Room

Oronce Fine’s famous double cordiform map of the world is acknowledged as being one of the most striking and influential world maps published in the c.16th.

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Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov

$530

Somerset House Books

This is the First UK Edition of Lolita, which is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. Remarkably scarce.

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ONE OF TEN KNOWN BOOKS FROM SIR WALTER RALEGH'S PRISON LIBRARY IN THE TOWER OF LONDON. [RALEIGH (Walter).] VIGNIER (Nicolas, the younger). Theatre de L‘Antechrist.

$72000

Maggs Bros Ltd

First edition. Small Folio. 692, [14 (index/errata)] pp. Diagonal closed tear from a paper flaw in EEe2. Contemporary limp vellum, sewn on four tawed leather slips, the covers tooled in the centre with the armorial crest of Sir Walter Ralegh. [Saumur] 1610.

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, "VEDUTA DEL ROMANO CAMPIDOGLIO CON SCALINATA CHE VA ALLA CHIESA D'ARACELI". From "Vedute di Roma".

$2750

Sartoni Antique Prints

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI (Mogliano Veneto 1720-Roma 1778) Italian school "VEDUTA DEL ROMANO CAMPIDOGLIO CON SCALINATA CHE VA ALLA CHIESA D'ARACELI" [THE CAPITOL AND THE STEPS OF S. MARIA IN ARACOELI] 1757 Etching DESCRIPTION: Original etching from the "Vedute di Roma". "Veduta del romano Campidoglio con Scalinata che va alla che va alla Chiesa d'Araceli". In this etching Piranesi captures with great power and theatricality one of the emblematic places of Rome: the Capitol, with its famous staircase. NOTE: Unidentified watermark. Hind 38, ii-iii/v.

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