Melbourne Rare Book Fair

The Origin Of Species By Means of Natural Selection | Charles Darwin

$2950

According to the well-credentialled Forum Auctions in London:- “The printing of 1876 is the final text as Darwin left it. The issue was limited to 1,250 copies only. This number is as small as any, being equalled only by that of the first edition and is remarkably hard to come by (Freeman pp 80-81 of F401)" So, this copy is a very good example of the Sixth 'Eighteenth Thousand' Edition but note: the actual print number as quoted has recently been disputed elsewhere and possibly may have been as many as 2000 copies. Still, very scarce with about 150 years of age patina.

View More

Moby Dick

$39000

Mount of Alex - Arapiles Mountain Books

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. 1st edition. 1851. New York: Harper & Brothers. Cochran copy, ex-Fisk Memorial Library, Natchez, Mississippi.12mo. Original brown cloth gilt, publisher’s circular blindstamp upper board in bespoke clamshell case; pp. xxiv (last blank), 636 (last blank), [6 publisher’s catalogue)]. [Tanselle 2] Despite initial unfavourable criticism, there is good reason why Moby Dick often makes lists of the top ten books ever written. It contains the best exposition of Melville’s philosophical musings, every sentence loaded with import.

Marlborough, His Life and Times [Presentation copy] [OFFERED WITH] A.L.S. from Clementine Churchill and additional Churchilliana

$25000

Archives Fine Books

Volume I INSCRIBED, "To Geoffrey Hale from Winston S. Churchill 1955" (on the recto of the frontispiece) : Volume II INSCRIBED, "From Winston S. Churchill 1955" (on first blank) : autograph letter SIGNED from Clementine Churchill to, "My dear Doctor Hale" expressing her gratitude, "for all you did for my sister, not only during her last illness, but also for many years." (Chartwell, 13 February, 1955) : two Christmas cards from Winston and Clementine Churchill (one with autograph note from Clementine), and an invitation and order of ceremony for the presentation to Churchill on his 80th.

View More

Chart of the N. and W. Parts of Bass’s Straits

$6750

Antique Print Map Room

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.

View More

"QUEENSLAND CENSUS DISTRICTS AND SUB-DISTRICT 1891"; Collection of 76 [of 77] folded maps. Printed at the Govt. Engraving and Lithographic Office.

$6500

Sartoni Antique Prints

"QUEENSLAND CENSUS DISTRICTS AND SUB-DISTRICT 1891" Printed at the Govt. Engraving and Lithographic Office. W. KNIGHT [engraver] DESCRIPTION: "QUEENSLAND CENSUS DISTRICTS AND SUB-DISTRICT 1891", 76 [of 77] folded maps. 60 [of 61] numbered and 16 unnumbered maps, + index map and index list; with the original cover labeled: "MAPS to company REGISTER-GENERAL REPORT CENSUS 1892". Map n:5 [Etheridge] missed.

View More

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'.

View More

ABNEY, Hephzibah. Manuscript with hundreds of original watercolour illustrations of shells.

$26100

Peter Harrington

A conchological labour of love: an attractive album of “shells from nature” by the talented watercolourist Hephzibah Abney (née Need, 1758-1841) and a record of the conchylomania that swept Europe in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This is the only recorded example of Abney’s shell illustrations and has re-entered the market almost 50 years after its last appearance.

The Birds of Australia

$750000

Douglas Stewart Fine Books

London : printed by Richard and John Taylor for the author, 1848. The first comprehensive survey of the birds of Australia, with hand-coloured illustrations and descriptions of 681 species, 328 of which were new to Western science and which Gould was the first to describe. The finest of all Australian colour plate books, and Gould’s ‘greatest achievement’ (Wantrup). Provenance: Sir Edward Charles Stirling (1848-1919), Director of the South Australian Museum 1895 - 1913

View More

台湾勤務日本人警察官手帳. [Japanese Police Officer's Journal].

$3250

Asia Bookroom

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.

View More

Hobart Town

$2450

Antique Print Map Room

Rare c.19th detailed hand coloured engraved panorama of Hobart published in 1879. From the original edition of the Australasian Sketcher.

View More

Signed, First edition of The Book Bag

$1000

Archives Fine Books

MAUGHAM, W.S. The Book Bag The Lungarno Series No.9. Florence: G. Oriolo, 1932. First Edition. “Though I said that affection was the greatest enemy of love, I would never deny that it's a very good substitute.” — Maugham. No. 29 of 725. Maugham's tale of the too-close relationship of a brother and sister has gained a reputation as one of Maugham's more unsettling works. With its themes of obsession, isolation and taboo relationships, it was first published by G. Orioli, a publisher unafraid to issue controversial works, albeit for a niche market.

View More

Ex Libris of Yasushi Ohmoto by Cliff Parfit

$395

The Antique Bookshop & Curios

The Ex-Libris of Yasuhi Ohmoto. By Cliff Parfit Tokyo. English Centre. 1982. 16 tipped-in colour bookplates. Signed by the artist. Fine in cloth case.

中華書局印刷樣本. [Chung Hwa Book Company Printing Samples Book].

$1500

Asia Bookroom

Delightful sample catalogue from Chung Hwa Book Co. in Shanghai with 38 unpaginated leaves including introduction, awards, and samples demonstrating the types of printing and printed illustrations carried out by this printing company. Chinese card binding with silk ties, 21 x 28.4cm. Presented in blue cloth-covered case with toggles, 29.8 x 21.4cm. The first 2 leaves include the company's logo and a foreword introducing the company and its expansion in just a few short years, up until Minguo 5. Following this there are 7 pages of photographic illustrations of awards received by the company.

View More

三國通覽全圖. [General Map of Three Countries].

$6500

Asia Bookroom

Manuscript, ink and watercolour copy of this famous map which shows the disputed island of Dokdo/Takeshima. This particular map, showing Japan and its neighbours attracts strong feelings even today as it shows the disputed islands, known to the Japanese as Takeshima たけしま/竹島, Dokdo - 독도/獨島 to Koreans and Liancourt Rocks to English speakers, crucially marked as "Korea's possession". This is used by Korea as evidence for the legitimacy of their claim.

View More

Nova, et Integra Universi Orbis Descriptio.

$65000

Antique Print Map Room

Oronce Fine’s famous double cordiform map of the world is acknowledged as being one of the most striking and influential world maps published in the c.16th.

View More

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, "VEDUTA DEL ROMANO CAMPIDOGLIO CON SCALINATA CHE VA ALLA CHIESA D'ARACELI". From "Vedute di Roma".

$2750

Sartoni Antique Prints

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI (Mogliano Veneto 1720-Roma 1778) Italian school "VEDUTA DEL ROMANO CAMPIDOGLIO CON SCALINATA CHE VA ALLA CHIESA D'ARACELI" [THE CAPITOL AND THE STEPS OF S. MARIA IN ARACOELI] 1757 Etching DESCRIPTION: Original etching from the "Vedute di Roma". "Veduta del romano Campidoglio con Scalinata che va alla che va alla Chiesa d'Araceli". In this etching Piranesi captures with great power and theatricality one of the emblematic places of Rome: the Capitol, with its famous staircase. NOTE: Unidentified watermark. Hind 38, ii-iii/v.

View More

CHIVERS BINDING - TENNYSON, Alfred. Poetical Works.

$14100

Peter Harrington

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.

View More

Machiavelli (Niccolo) THE WORKS OF THE FAMOUS NICOLAS MACHIAVELLI, CITIZEN AND SECRETARY OF FLORENCE.

$10000

Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller

Written originally in Italian, and from thence newly and faithfully translated into English. John Starkey, London, 1675. *The first English edition of Machiavelli's works. The translation has been attributed to Henry Neville (1620-1695), author of The Isle of Pines. Includes Nicholas Machiavel's Letter to Zanobius Buondelmontius in vindication of Himself and His Writings, which was by Neville, not Machiavelli. Other works include The History of Florence; The Prince; and The Art of War.

View More

The three voyages of Captain James Cook

$50000

Douglas Stewart Fine Books

A magnificent set of the official accounts of Cook’s voyages, comprehensively illustrated with maps and plates. Finely bound by the venerable London firm of Morell in the late nineteenth century, this exceptional collection of the complete set of the voyages of Cook is distinguished by its full, wide margins and rich, dark impressions.

View More

The Great Sermon Handicap by P.G. Wodehouse.

$1500

Kenneth Hince Old & Fine Books

London, Hodder and Stoughton, [1933]. Duodecimo, very good in original gilt-lettered and decorated crimson boards with pictorial dustwrapper (slightly chipped), marbled endpapers. First separate edition. McIlvaine, A49a. Charming small format edition with dustwrapper in uncommonly good condition of the quintessential Jeeves & Bertie story: '"Well, all I can say," he cried, "is that it's a bit thick! Preaching another man's sermon! Do you call that honest? Do you call that playing the game?"'

Bonaparte, Napoleon: MILITARY BREVET, 1803, SIGNED 'BONAPARTE'.

$5000

Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller

Foolscap folio parchment sheet, with engraved letterhead 'Departement de la Guerre, Republique Francaise' incorporating an image of Marianne, wearing a feathered helmet and holding a lowered sword, seated leaning against the table of the Constitution above the words 'Bonaparte, Consul de la Republique'. *The document records the details of service of citizen Ambroise Melac, and 'in the name of the French people' orders other officers to recognize his qualities and rank.

View More

And Quiet Flows the Don | Mikhail Sholokhov

$3100

Somerset House Books

And Quiet Flows The Don by Mikhail Sholokhov (1934 First UK Edition, First Impression in April):8vo, 755pp. Obviously very scarce as a first edition and impression from April 1934, the wonderful patina of age is very obvious as the novel in four volumes traces the lives and struggles of the Cossacks of the Don River Valley during the First World War, the Russian Revolution and the terrible Russian Civil War for the White armies against the Red Bolsheviks. Originally published in a Soviet magazine in 1928-1932 and then in 1940.

View More

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.

Charles Troedel. The Melbourne Album, containing a Series of Views of Melbourne & Country Districts.

$12000

Kenneth Hince Old & Fine Books

Oblong folio, lithographed titling-wrapper on cream paper, bound in as title-page as issued, twelve fine tinted lithographed plates, Very rare: one of the short sets of twelve elegant tinted lithographs that make up Troedel's Melbourne Album of 1863-4, "perhaps the finest work of urban topography produced in Australia in the nineteenth century" (Wantrup). Notable contemporary artists including Nicholas Chevalier, Eugen von Guerard, Edward Gilks and Henry Gritten contributed to the Album.