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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Spenser’s Faerie Queene
$16500
SPENSER, Edmund; [WALTER CRANE, illustrator]
Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Edited by Thomas J. Wise. London : George Allen, 1894-97. Quarto, nineteen parts in original illustrated wrappers, illustrated by Crane throughout. The deluxe edition printed on Japanese vellum, limited to 28 copies of which 25 were for sale.Magnificently illustrated by Crane and a highpoint of Arts and Crafts publishing.
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Kitajima. - 結核予防. [Kekkaku yobō]. [Tuberculosis Prevention Poster].
$950
内務省社会局保険部. [Naimu-shō Shakai-kyoku Hoken-bu]. 東京. [Tokyo]. (Circa 1925).
Large coloured lithographed poster, 108 x 79cm. Poster has been folded and is now creased but still very striking. Scarce.
This Japanese government poster was published to raise awareness for the prevention of tuberculosis. It bears the campaign slogan "Train your body!" in Japanese. The artists style is strong and dynamic as the young men wrestle like sumo wrestlers while in the background an industrial area with smoking chimneys can be seen.
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The Clipper Blue Jacket at Sea 1869 by Hugh Hughes
$3500
Pencil and coloured crayon drawing on prepared board
32.5 x 46.3 cm
Signed and dated; also titled below the image under the mount.
Provenance: Private collection, UK until 2011.
The Blue Jacket was an American clipper built in Boston in 1858 and well known for the lavish decoration of the staterooms and saloon. She served in the Liverpool and Australia trades between 1860-1864. The ship was named after The Blue Jackets, a traditional name for sailors in the US and British navies.
Hugh Hughes was an Able Seaman aboard the Blue Jacket in 1867.
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[POTET, L. Robert] La Couleur dans l'Histoire du Costume L'Antiquité: Civilisations Extreme-Orientales
$475
First edition: published in Paris by Èdition l'Officiel de la Couleur, 1952. A bright and colourful album featuring the traditional costumes of China, Mongolia, Manchuria, Japan, Korea, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. The album reflects contemporary French interest in the culture and costumes of Vietnam, with separate, detailed chapters on Cochinchina and the provinces of Tonkin and Annam.
Limited first edition of 1000 numbered copies, signed by the artist.
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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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ELIOT, George. Romola
$1200
Leipzig: BernhardTauchnitz, 1863. Copyright edition. vellum. Small octavo : two volumes bound in one : pp.vi + 328+ vi + 310 (2, blank) : bound in full vellum decorated in elaborate gilt : all edges gilt, concealing aFINE FORE EDGE PAINTING : foliate printed endpapers with label of G. Brogi on the verso of f.f.e.p. Title on top board slightly faded, some slight darkening to the vellum at edges and corner. Both volumes lack a half title page but conform to Todd and Bowden 682Aa and 683A in all other respects. In other words, a first Tauchnitz impression of this title. Near fine. Item #1558
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GOULD, John. A Monograph of the Macropodidæ, or Family of Kangaroos...London, 1841-2.
$68000
The first edition, all published, complete as issued in the original printed boards, and extremely rare. Like Gould’s other monumental books on Australian natural history the Macropodidæ was issued by subscription. The Prospectus lists just eighty-four names, which must account for the book’s rarity on the market today.
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