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
Thomas Frognall Dibdin. THE LIBRARY COMPANION. London, 1824.
$3000
First edition, one volume issue. With a tipped-in autograph letter from Dibdin, signed, and dated April 15, 1814, to W. Godwin, and with an integral address leaf to Godwin, franked by Earl Spencer (in Bath).
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The Second Folio Shakespeare. London, 1632.
$450000
With the rare Aspley imprint, the Droeshout portrait and the first published poem of John Milton; one of approximately 250 copies known to exist today, this copy having been in private Australian ownership for more than seventy years. The earliest edition of Shakespeare that is practicably obtainable on today's market and acknowledged as the most important work in the English language.
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Natural History albums, “Zoologie” and “Botanique”. Avignon, 1849.
$24000
Kangaroo and platypus centre stage in a glorious illustrated manuscript.
Two lavishly illustrated manuscripts on zoology and botany, with illuminated title pages and gold highlighting throughout. The artist was Valentine du Demaine of Avignon; her highly finished work dates from before her marriage to the Marquis d’Espagnet.
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Waterman's Ideal Fountain Pen
$750
[Waterman, L. E.]
"Waterman's Ideal Fountain Pen"
First edition: published in New York by L.E. Waterman Company, 1925.
Worldcat lists one copy only in the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Scarce.
Quarto, bound in blue cloth boards with gilt-decorated title, 96 pages, a fine copy.
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The Further Inquiry
$3000
Ken Kesey looks back on the 1964 trip of the Merry Pranksters in their psychedelic bus across the United States told largely in dialogued transcript including the famed monologues of Neal Cassady and illustrated throughout with previously unpublished photographs of the voyage from coast to coast partying, handing out LSD, and travelling further. A real glimpse at the psychedelic cult tale told in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. This copy signed by Kesey, and one of a small number he individually hand marbled in swirling yellow, purple and blue paint.
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Common Sea Birds 1977 by Peter Trusler
$7500
Original painting for the Poster produced for The Gould League of Victoria in 1977 by Peter Trusler. Titled Common Sea Birds, it is an oil on board measuring 79 x 52 cm and is signed and dated. It has come from the collection of Margaret Cameron by descent to The Ornithological Society, Brisbane
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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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