Highlights

London, Duckworth, 1926. Octavo, diffuse foxing, original blue cloth lettered in gilt with chipped pictorial dustwrapper (bit oxidised on spine). Third impression. Early printing in exceptionally scarce 1920s dustwrapper reproducing the fabulous John Nicolson ('Nick') artwork from the first impression but not priced on spine. Banned in New Zealand in 1926 and in Australia from 1929.

London, printed for William Miller by S. Gosnell, 1808 [later issue]. Folio, with 22 fine handcoloured stipple engraved plates by J. Dadley, bound with new endpapers in early straight grain morocco, the boards within elaborate embossed and gilt frames, the backstrip preserving remnants of the original lettering, all edges gilt. As often, this is a later issue with some plates watermarked in 1817. Mason's time as a British army officer in Canton in 1789 gave him the opportunity to illustrate local customs and costumes, and he also provided the text for each plate. See Abbey Travel, 532.

[Naikaku Insatsukyoku]. Tokyo. Showa 17 [1942].

Hordern House: Sydney, 2001. Translated by Thomas Cullity, assisted by Katherine Pratt, and Jean and Bernice Pasquier. Special issue: #28 of 28 copies, printed on large paper and bound in quarter vellum and olive green glazed linen by Newbold and Collins. (The standard edition was itself limited to 300 copies and quickly sold out.) Large 4to. xxii, 670pp, with a portrait, twenty maps and illustrations and eight colour plates. A fine clean copy, still with the publisher's plain paper wrapper. ***Freycinet's examination of the history and progress of the colony during its first 52 years.

En Mexico : En casa de Geronymo Balli. Año 1609. The exceedingly rare first edition of a cornerstone work in the literature of European exploration and colonisation in the Pacific. Sucesos has always been – from as far back as the early eighteenth century – a notoriously difficult book to obtain. Fewer than 25 extant copies are recorded.

London, Printed by William Morris at the Kelmscott Press, 1894 (second Kelmscott edition)/ 1891. One of only 250 copies on paper (a further seven copies were printed on vellum). This is the second edition, and the first to contain the illustrations by Walter Crane.

Oxford, 1732. Octavo, with engraved title vignette, fifteen folding and full-page engraved plates and plans, a crisp copy in contemporary panelled calf, later rebacking, with the engraved bookplates of Lt. Colonel Pechell, and Henry Ridley Dale. Fifth edition, with an account of the author's journey to the banks of the Euphrates at Beer, and to the country of Mesopotamia.

Hammersmith, The Doves Press, 1902. Edition limited to 325 copies, printed by T.J. Cobden-Sanderson.

Published by the Author: Sydney, 1924. #208 of 1000 copies, signed by Hardy Wilson. Large folio. [vi], 10, IV, 50 tipped-in collotype plates, with titled tissue guards. Original quarter parchment and batik boards, gilt titles and bat device on the upper (without the dustwrapper, as usual). The spine is rubbed along the joints, which are just starting to split a little at the head and tail, the spine itself a little discoloured and with some slight damp-marking; the edges of the boards slightly rubbed. The volume is now protected by a new mylar wrapper. Internally in very nice clean condition.

Octavo, coloured frontispiece and numerous illustrations. Contemporary full morocco with the bookplate of Harold Alston, inner dentelles and gilt rule, all edges gilt. "Savage Club Melbourne To my esteemed friend Harold Alston with good wishes Tarlton Rayment May 15, 1936".

Vibrant watercolour by British Australian illustrator, Peg Maltby (1899 - 1984). Peg Maltby, née Agnes Newberry Orchard, worked in England as an illustrator of chocolate-box lids before emigrating to Melbourne where she became a member of the Victorian Artists' Society holding successful exhibitions of her watercolours in the 1930s and 1940s. Maltby rose to fame with the publication of 'Peg's Fairy Book', published by Muffetts in 1944 and selling over 180,000 copies in five editions. Note the rare inclusion of a native koala in the composition.

A lovingly preserved relic from Cook’s second expedition, a delicately rendered drawing of HMS Resolution under sail sketched from astern, the White Ensign clearly visible, also a streamer flying from the main mast and a jack at the bow. It is attributed to William Hodges, who accompanied Cook as draughtsman. From the collection of Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Grindall (1750–1820); thence by descent.