Highlights
Each year our exhibitors bring rare, beautiful and unusual items for sale.
Here are a sample of the wide range of printed materials that were available at the 2024 Fair. If you are interested in these, please contact the exhibitor, they may still be available
2025 Highlights will be posted in June 2025
Tapio Wirkkala, Eye Hand and Thought
$200
A symbolic figure in Finnish design. We will be bringing a range of books on Modernist furniture.
BIRTLES, Francis: Lonely Lands. Through the Heart of Australia
$1250
Sydney, N.S.W. Bookstall Co., 1909.
The account of Birtles' ambitious bicycle journey around Australia, in which he covered 8300 miles over thirteen months, with illustrations from his photographs
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“HOBSON BAY AND THE RIVER YARRA LEADING TO MELBOURNE”
$7800
Cartographer: Captain G.H. RICHARDS
Publisher: BRITISH ADMIRALTY
1865 [1901]
Engraving [engraved by J. & C. WALKER]
Very interesting and detailed large plan of Melbourne and Hobson Bay.
All pertinent nautical information as ports, docks, sea depths,
sand bars, wrecks, as well as building, streets, parks etc
are accurately named and tracked.
As updated charts were offered for sale, the earlier outdated charts in the hands of mariners, pilots, ships owners and sailors were invariably discarded, subsequently making all British Admiralty issued hydrographic charts of the period rare
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Une Jeunesse que l'Avenir inquiète trop souvent (Bandaged head).
$750
[MAI '68].
Une Jeunesse que l'Avenir inquiète trop souvent (Bandaged head).
Paris: 1968. Original Poster. Lithograph in purple : 56cm x 42.9cm : bandaged head with bull's-eye pupils and safety pin through mouth. (14980)
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Portrait of a queen or princess in oriental Egyptian style.
$8000
August Pollak (1838-1903) A wonderful painting of an "Oriental Woman”, in the guise of Cleopatra wearing the goddess Neckhbet (Vulture) head-dress with a suggestion of a cobra at the brow. Fine gold earrings and a beautiful necklace adorn her, with the sensuous somewhat fragile beauty of the imagined Cleopatra.
Pollack was an Austrian artist, many of his paintings are of still lives, sensuous women or whimsical studies of children with cats, he is known for his oriental subjects. His paintings have about them a Fusilian mystery. The painting could be a study for a larger work.
ELIOT, George. Two autograph letters signed "Marian E. Lewes", to Frederic Leighton. 1862
Two detailed letters from Eliot to her illustrator, Frederic Leighton, demonstrating her extensive research into Italian history for her novel Romola, her anxiety over its factual minutiae, and her satisfaction with Leighton's interpretation of her work.
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The Great Southern Continent
$856000
A spectacular wall map of astonishing beauty made at the beginning of the Dutch Golden Age.
The present map draws on the cartography of Luis Teixeira (fl 1564-1613), whose name appears in the large banner title. He was a Portuguese cartographer from a famous mapmaking dynasty. He worked in Lisbon and the Portuguese colonies, but was also a friend of and collaborator with Dutch cartographers, contributing a map of Japan to Abraham Ortelius’s atlas. Ortelius and Cornelis Claesz published five of his maps between them, and all were specifically advertised as based on his work.
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Victoria during the Gold Rush
$9500
A detailed map of the state of Victoria. At the time of printing, Victoria was a relatively new colony, established in 1851. The discovery of gold near Ballarat and Bendigo a few months later set off one of the largest gold rushes in history, as settlers poured in to seek their fortunes. The map reflects the colony’s source of population and wealth, showing how settlements cluster around the gold fields.
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Animal Farm [St James Park Press Ltd Ed]
$2500
Limited Edition [St James Park Press, London, 2022]; [vi], 124pp + limitation page; folded plain grey, textured card covers glued to string bound page block, illustrated card dustjacket; in perspex slipcase.
Ten colour plates with spectacular linocut illustrations by Hugh Ribbans.
Limited to only 140 copies [this being #124]
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WOMEN'S FREEDOM LEAGUE. Birthday Book. Glasgow: [printed by Gilmour & Lawrence Printers for] Women's Freedom League Suffrage Centre, [c.1910]
An uncommon women's suffrage birthday book, published to fundraise for the Scottish Council of the Women's Freedom League, compiled by Eunice Murray, future president of the WFL in Scotland and the first Scotswoman to stand for parliament. It comprises contributions from a number of significant Scottish suffragettes including Helen Fraser, Alexia Jack, and Anna Munro.
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China in a Series of Views, Displaying the Scenery, Architecture and Social Habits, of that Ancient Empire.
$3950
A very handsome example of George Newenham Wright's influential work, richly illustrated by Thomas Allom.
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[Views in South Australia]
$9500
Complete set of six lithographic views of colonial South Australia, by Edward Castle who came to South Australia in 1839 on board the Moffatt and took up land in the colony.
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