Highlights

Each year our exhibitors bring extraordinarily rare, beautiful and unusual items for sale.
Here is a selection of the items offered in 2025 by our exhibitors. These may still be available for purchase. If interested, contact the respective exhibitor directlyCloser to the 2026 Fair, new highlights of what will be on offer in 2026 will be posted. Bookmark this page and visit again to see the 2026 highlights.
Horace (Quintus Flaccus) QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS.
$5500
[Text in Latin]. Joannis Baskerville, Birminghamiae, 1762. First Baskerville edition. *Formerly from the library of Jeanne-Annette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (1721-1764), the chief mistress of French King Louis XV. Madame de Pompadour was an influential patron of the arts and accumulated an extensive library of over 3,500 books on topics including history, philosophy, theology, music and poetry. Many were bound for her by the leading French bookbinders of the time.
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Robbery Under Arms by Rolf Bolderwood (sic)
$3900
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.
Purdey's The Guns and the Family
$400
History of the sporting shotgun and rifle maker firm, James Purdey & Sons. Limited to 250 copies, hand-bound in navy morocco, signed and numbered by the author and second generation proprietor, Richard Beaumont.
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ZLATA' PRAHA, Viktor Oliva, Czech painter and illustrator.
$750
VIKTOR OLIVA
(Nové Stašecì, [Bohemia] 1861- Prague 1928)
Czech painter and illustrator
“ZLATA' PRAHA” c.1894
LITHOGRAPHY
Original colour lithograph advertising “Zlata' Praha” (Golden Prague), a Czech illustrated literary magazine founded by poet Vítězslav Hálek, published between 1864 to 1929.
An elegant woman dressed in red in a golden frame, wearing an eccentric hat and walking with a copy of "Zlata' Praha" under her left arm.
Published by Imprimerie Chaix (Atelier Chéret), Paris.
NOTE: Original colour lithograph printed on "Arches" paper.Blank at verso; before stamps (before publication)
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AUSTEN, Jane; THOMSON, Hugh (illus.). Pride and Prejudice.
$15700
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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Hobart Town
$2450
Rare c.19th detailed hand coloured engraved panorama of Hobart published in 1879. From the original edition of the Australasian Sketcher.
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The philosophy of Andy Warhol. (From A to B and back again). (Signed copy with drawing of a Campbell’s Soup can)
$7500
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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First World War recruitment leaflet distributed by aeroplane
$550
'If YOU were Hit by a Bomb from an Enemy Aeroplane you would Realise that we are at War!'
Adelaide, printed by 'Advertiser' Print for J. Newland, State Recruiting Committee, 27 October 1917.
Robert Graham Carey, manager of the Ballarat Flying School, dropped this leaflet over Adelaide from his 60hp Bleriot monoplane in October 1917.
The Beatles: A rare signed „Pixerama“ Foldbook.
$44700
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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Chart of the N. and W. Parts of Bass’s Straits
$6750
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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Salmon at the Antipodes: Being an Account of the Successful Introduction of Salmon and Trout into Australian Waters. By Sir Samuel Wilson.
$1750
London, Edward Stanford, 1879. Octavo, mounted photographic frontispiece 'Trout Pond at Ercildoune', folding map, index, lemon china clay endpapers, bright original decorated terracotta cloth, lettered in gilt, vignette of a salmon in silver on front board, small lozenge binder's ticket on rear pastedown, near fine copy. 'Third Edition'. Presentation copy.
The Satanic Verses | Signed Copy | Salman Rushdie
$8000
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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台湾勤務日本人警察官手帳. [Japanese Police Officer's Journal].
$3250
Pocket book with hand-written journal records in graphite, 117pp. 10.5 x 7cm. A very rare and highly unusual example of a notebook kept by a Japanese policeman (junsa) in colonial Taiwan in the early twentieth century. On the upper cover of the notebook debossed characters name the southern Taiwanese region of 蕃薯藔廳 (Fanshuliao District), home to Rukai and Paiwan indigenous people. The entries span the period from December 1903 to 25 May 1904. Most entries appear to be Morimoto's day-to-day notes taken during and after his interactions with the indigenous people in the area.
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‘INCUNABLE’ OF COMIC PRINTING IN YOKOHAMA. WIRGMAN (Charles), editor. Japan Punch.
$13500
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.
BEAUTIFUL NATURAL HISTORY ILLUSTRATIONS. CAPESTRO (Federico). [Three illustrated notebooks.]
$12500
Idrografia. Prospetto dei principali fiumi e laghi della Terra [e monti e vulcani]. Ms. in ink. 10 full page hand-coloured illustrations (9 on vellum), gold highlights throughout. Folio. Cloth-backed marbled boards. 36pp. “Premiato con diploma di 2o grada dalla Societa Patria in data 30 Novembre 1874.” [With:] Scienze naturali 1869. Gli ucceli. Ms. in black, red & blue ink. 39 hand-coloured drawings. Small folio. Cloth-backed marbled boards. 71pp. [And:] Storia degli animal di Capestro Federico A[nn]o 1869. Ms. in ink. 146 drawings. Small folio. Cloth-backed marbled boards. 108pp. 1874.
AUSTEN, Jane - TEMPLE BOOK CLUB. Remarkable manuscript archive of a private subscribers’ library.
$62700
An intriguing collection of book lists, invoices, and receipts from the Temple Book Club, which operated between 1812 and 1819, a period during which first editions of works such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park were acquired at discounted rates and circulated among its members, a select group of barristers from one of London’s Inns of Court.
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Les Amours de Psyche et de Cupidon
$5500
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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Rainer Knaust: Precious Objects
$350
Exhibition catalogue. 44 wooden blocks housed in wooden case. Limited to 300 signed and numbered copies. Exhibited at the Municiple Gallery at the German Blade Museum, Sollingen, March 17 - April 28, 1996.
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John Harris, Navigantium atque itinerantium bibliotheca: or, A Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels. Consisting of above six hundred of the most authentic writers.
$17000
London, T. Woodward, et al., 1744 - 1748. Two volumes, thick folio, titles in black & red, complete with 61 maps, charts, and plates.
The second edition of Harris's great collection of travels, preferred for its new maps prepared by Emmanuel Bowen. The most notable is Bowen's version of the Thévenot Tasman map, "A Complete Map of the Southern Continent surveyed by Capt. Abel Tasman". This is the first English map of Australia (and the first map of Australia since Thévenot in 1663).
Pedro Fernández de Quirós: Manuscript memorial to Philip III of Spain.
$800000
A radical abolitionist in the age of Shakespeare: original Quiròs manuscript memorial arguing against the Black slave trade. [Madrid, possibly before September 1611]. An exceptional document in the history of Portuguese colonization of South America, and one of the greatest rarities in the field of voyages and exploration: an original manuscript petition, not recorded in any other copy, written to the King of Spain by the Portuguese-Spanish seafarer and discoverer Pedro Fernández de Quirós (Queirós), proposing to settle the "Austral lands" for the Spanish crown.
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CHIVERS BINDING - TENNYSON, Alfred. Poetical Works.
$14100
A “vellucent” style binding, with delicately rendered Arthurian figures after Dorothy Carlton Smyth (1880-1933), the most prolific of Chivers’s female designers. Smyth was particularly involved with the Glasgow School of Art, who appointed her as their first female director. Her stained glass Tristan and Iseult, the subject of one of Tennyson’s Arthurian poems, garnered wide acclaim at the 1901 International Exhibition.
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