Melbourne Rare Book Fair

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

$450

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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CURIE, Marie. “Radio-Active Substances.”

$31400

Peter Harrington

First edition in English of Curie’s famous dissertation, rare in such excellent condition in the original parts. Serialized across 15 issues of The Chemical News, it was applauded by the examination committee for being the greatest scientific contribution ever made in a doctoral thesis. Later the same year, Curie received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of radioactivity.

A Winter Ship

$5750

ORCHARD BOOKSHOP

Plath’s first independently published poem - one of only 60 copies. Depicting a desolate scene across an unnamed harbor, this beautifully produced booklet is a true literary treasure.

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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.

Doug Scott, The Ogre

$250

Mount of Alex - Arapiles Mountain Books

Scott, Doug. The Ogre. Biography of a mountain and the dramatic story of the first ascent. 1st edition. 2017. Sheffield: Vertebrate Publishing. 8vo. Original pictorial boards in dustjacket; pp. xiv, 178, with illustrations. Signed by the author. A fine copy. A full account of the first ascent of ‘The Ogre’ (Baintha Brakk), a notoriously difficult mountain in the Karakoram, by a British team in 1977, known for the absolutely epic descent by the two summit climbers, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington. This was the last of Doug‘s books to be published in his lifetime.

Chart of the N. and W. Parts of Bass’s Straits

$6750

Antique Print Map Room

Rare and important, early c.19th hand coloured engraved chart by Lieutenant James Grant who was given command of the Lady Nelson with the instructions to sail her to Sydney and hand her over to Matthew Flinders.

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GOTHIC REVIVAL ILLUMINATION. FRENCH ILLUMINATOR. A suite of large neo-gothic illuminated initials.

$9250

Maggs Bros Ltd

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.

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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Bony Buys a Woman By Arthur Upfield (Signed)

$350

The Antique Bookshop & Curios

BONY BUYS A WOMAN By Arthur Upfield Lond. Heinemann. 1957. First Edition. Scarce. Inscribed & signed by Arthur Upfield

Machiavelli (Niccolo) THE WORKS OF THE FAMOUS NICOLAS MACHIAVELLI, CITIZEN AND SECRETARY OF FLORENCE.

$10000

Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller

Written originally in Italian, and from thence newly and faithfully translated into English. John Starkey, London, 1675. *The first English edition of Machiavelli's works. The translation has been attributed to Henry Neville (1620-1695), author of The Isle of Pines. Includes Nicholas Machiavel's Letter to Zanobius Buondelmontius in vindication of Himself and His Writings, which was by Neville, not Machiavelli. Other works include The History of Florence; The Prince; and The Art of War.

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The Insane Root: A Romance of a Strange Country by Mrs. Campbell Praed.

$1500

Kenneth Hince Old & Fine Books

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.

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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“CARTE DE LA NOUVELLE-HOLLANDE”; LOUIS CLAUDE DE SAULCES DE FREYCINET.

$2750

Sartoni Antique Prints

“CARTE DE LA NOUVELLE-HOLLANDE” 1824 Cartographer: LOUIS CLAUDE DE SAULCES DE FREYCINET (Montélimar 1779- Loriol-sur-Drôme 1841) Technique: COPPER ENGRAVING Rare updated version of Freycinet’s seminal map of Australia which was first issued in 1807 in a larger format in the accounts of the French expedition under the command of Nicholas Baudin. Freycinet was the cartographer for the expedition...

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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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[Meiji Period Japanese Moveable Type].

$3500

Asia Bookroom

411 examples of Japanese wooden moveable type. The moveable type include kanji, hiragana, katakana and numbers both Japanese and Arabic. The pieces of wooden type shows some signs of use but overall a very good collection.

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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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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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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.

中華書局印刷樣本. [Chung Hwa Book Company Printing Samples Book].

$1500

Asia Bookroom

Delightful sample catalogue from Chung Hwa Book Co. in Shanghai with 38 unpaginated leaves including introduction, awards, and samples demonstrating the types of printing and printed illustrations carried out by this printing company. Chinese card binding with silk ties, 21 x 28.4cm. Presented in blue cloth-covered case with toggles, 29.8 x 21.4cm. The first 2 leaves include the company's logo and a foreword introducing the company and its expansion in just a few short years, up until Minguo 5. Following this there are 7 pages of photographic illustrations of awards received by the company.

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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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The Satanic Verses | Signed Copy | Salman Rushdie

$8000

Somerset House Books

This immaculate first edition, signed and dedicated by the author, will further become one of the prize editions in English literature. Rushdie is understandably unlikely to ever commit to any public signings again.

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