Melbourne Rare Book Fair

Simon Raven, The Feathers of Death

$1250

Raven, Simon. The Feathers of Death. 1st edition,1959. London: Anthony Blond. 12mo. Original black cloth gilt in dustjacket; pp. 254. Inscribed by author to endpaper. Toning and spotting, jacket price-clipped. A very good copy. The author’s first book, a novel involving a same sex relationship in the British army. Simon Raven (1927-2001) is best known for his Alms for Oblivion series and his louche lifestyle, which features strongly in his work.

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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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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The avi-fauna of Australia : comprising Gould’s Birds of Australia and all other birds discovered in the Australian colonies since 1850

$35000

Douglas Stewart Fine Books

[Sydney?] : [G.J. Broinowski?], 1897. One of the rarest publications on Australian ornithology, one of only two known copies, the only one in private hands. In addition to its obvious desirability as an Australian colour plate book of almost unprocurable rarity, The avi-fauna of Australia is also meaningful insight into the debt Broinowski felt to Gould, and the respect he afforded the scientific community who contributed to our collective understanding of Australian ornithology. Provenance: Quentin Keynes (1921 – 2003), explorer, filmmaker, and great-grandson of Charles Darwin.

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"THE GREAT COLORPLATE BOOK OF THE NORTH PACIFIC" (Forbes). CHORIS (Louis). Voyage Pittoresque autour du monde ...

$250000

Maggs Bros Ltd

First edition. Rare coloured issue. 105 lithographed plates, folding map & 2 further maps. Folio. Contemporary diced calf with gilt border, rebacked, lightly worn, some toning and spotting to plates & pale dampstaining to final six, repaired tear one plate. Paris,1822. “One of the very valuable and fundamental works on Alaska, California, and the Hawaiian islands” (Lada-Mocarski).

The Beatles: A rare signed „Pixerama“ Foldbook.

$44700

KOTTE Autographs

The first four black and white portraits autographed individually in blue ballpoint by John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison; together with a concert programme, The Beatles Show, white covers with orange/black text.

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Charles Darwin: Autograph Letter Signed. Down Farnborough, Kent, 8 [Aug. 1850].

$44700

KOTTE Autographs

An important letter to Nathaniel Thomas Wetherell which underscores Darwin's belief in the scientific significance of the study of Cirripedia (barnacles).

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F.S. Smythe, The Valley of Flowers

$750

Mount of Alex - Arapiles Mountain Books

Smythe, F.S. [Frank Sydney]. The Valley of Flowers. 1st limited edition. 1938. London: Hodder & Stoughton.4to. Original cream cloth gilt; pp. xxiv (last blank), 322, with tissue-guarded colour photographic plates + 2 maps. [Neate S133]. No. 105 of a limited edition of 250 large format copies signed by the author. A little toned, but a very good copy. Originally issued in a presentation box with a sachet of seeds, both missing as usual. In 1931, Frank S. Smythe, Eric Shipton and R. L. Holdsworth discovered the valley by chance returning from a successful expedition to Kamet in Northern India.

Casino Royale

$3300

The Antique Bookshop & Curios

CASINO ROYALE By Ian Fleming N.Y. The Macmillan Co. 1954 1st US Edition in the dustjacket. Ian Fleming’s first James Bond book. Very scarce.

DOUGLAS, William Bloomfield. Diary kept while captain of a mail ship, commander of a government coastal survey, and government resident of the Northern Territory.

$104500

Peter Harrington

The valuable journal of the overly ambitious and power-hungry Captain Bloomfield Douglas, encompassing three important aspects of Australian colonial history: the evolution of the colony’s communications with the wider world, the quest to survey its coasts accurately, and the placing of control over colonized fringes in the hands of ill-suited soldiers of fortune.

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.

The philosophy of Andy Warhol. (From A to B and back again). (Signed copy with drawing of a Campbell’s Soup can)

$7500

Douglas Stewart Fine Books

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975. First edition. Octavo, boards in dust jacket, pp 241; a fine copy; the half-title is signed and inscribed by Warhol, accompanied by an original pen drawing by the artist of a Campbell’s Tomato Soup can, his most iconic image. Andy Warhol’s seminal self-analysing memoir, filled with his reflections of youth and society which help give an insight into one of the most enigmatic and magnetic artistic figures of the twentieth century.

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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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Crown Lands of Australia - Inscribed

$500

Sainsburys Books

Well-bound copy of Campbell's Crown Lands of Australia with inscription from the author to the previous owners, The Geelong Mechanic's Institure.

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Peppermint Trees, Melbourne c1860 by William Strutt

$5500

Bridget McDonnell Gallery

Pencil and wash with measurements of 18.5 x 26.3 cm. Signed and inscribed Peppermint Trees, Melbourne. Provenance: Private Collection, North Wales, part of a collection of works by William Strutt and Alfred William Strutt sold at Sotheby's, Chester, March 1991: John Ness Barkes & Edward Barkes

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Alasdair Gray, Lanark

$750

Mount of Alex - Arapiles Mountain Books

Gray, Alasdair. Lanark. A Life in 4 Books. 1st thus ‘Definitive Edition’,1985. Edinburgh: Canongate. 8vo. Original black cloth gilt in dustjacket; pp. [viii (last blank)], 562 (last blank), illustrated and decorated throughout by the author. No. 747 of a limited edition of 1000 copies, numbered, signed and additionally inscribed by Alasdair Gray. A little sunning and spotting, a very good copy. The author’s first book, a novel written over a period of almost thirty years, combining realist and dystopian surrealist depictions of his home city of Glasgow. First assembled in one book in 1981.

Les Amours de Psyche et de Cupidon

$5500

The Book Merchant Jenkins

One of the most striking editions of Fontaine’s adaptation of the story of Cupid and Psyche with coloured stipple engravings by Bonnefoy, Mme Demonchy, and Colibert after Jean-Frederic Schall. This copy extra illustrated and finely bound by the Paris bookbinder Salvador David.

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Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Bolderwood (sic)

$3900

The Antique Bookshop & Curios

Robbery Under Arms By Rolf Bolderwood (sic) The rare first edition. 3 vols. London. 1888. Robbery Under Arms By Rolf Bolderwood (sic) The rare first edition. 3 vols. London. 1888.

Clark: Foreign Field Sports, Fisheries, Sporting Anecdotes, &c. &c. ... With a Supplement of New South Wales

$7500

Michael Treloar Antiquarian Booksellers

London, Published and sold by Edward Orme, 1814 and 1813. The 'Supplement of New South Wales' ('Field Sports &c. &c. of the Native Inhabitants of New South Wales, with Ten Plates, by the Author, dedicated, by permission, to Rear Admiral Bligh ...') is described by Jonathan Wantrup as 'the very first book on the Australian Aborigines, a fact not often acknowledged'.

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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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[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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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

An Austen family copy of the first edition in beautiful Regency binding. AUSTEN (Jane). Emma.

$100000

Maggs Bros Ltd

First edition. Three volumes. 12mo. Contemporary tree calf, single-rule gilt border, flat spines elaborately panelled in gilt. London, John Murray. 1816. From the library of Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen (1829-1893), Jane Austen’s grand-nephew. It is uncommon to find Jane Austen titles in contemporary bindings and even more so with such intimate provenance.