Highlights
Each year our exhibitors bring extraordinarily rare, beautiful and unusual items for sale.
Leading up to the fair, you will find here, highlights, selected by our exhibitors, of the wide range of items that will be on exhibition and for sale at this year's fair.
Bookmark this page and visit again as our exhibitors will be adding highlights over the next two months
If something is of interest, please contact the exhibitor directly. They will welcome your enquiry.
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, "VEDUTA DI PIAZZA NAVONA SOPRA LE ROVINE DEL CIRCO AGONALE", from "VEDUTE DI ROMA".
$6800
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI
(Mogliano Veneto 1720-Roma 1778)
"VEDUTA DI PIAZZA NAVONA SOPRA LE ROVINE DEL CIRCO AGONALE"
[THE PIAZZA NAVONA WITH S. AGNESE ON THE RIGHT]
1751
Etching
DESCRIPTION:
Original etching from the series "Vedute di Roma".
"Veduta di Piazza Navona sopra le rovine del Circo Agonale" with Santa Agnese church at right.
Piranesi first general depiction of one of the most emblematic corners of Rome, Piazza Navona, built on the ruins of the ancient Circus of Domitian (or Circus Agonale).NOTE:
Life-time Rome edition on thick laid paper, fourth state of six, with address..
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Silva: or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in his Majesty’s Dominions
$1500
One of the most influential works on forestry ever published. The first Hunter edition with illustrations by John Miller.
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Astounding Science Fiction July 1940
$150
In this issue: the first printing of Robert Heinlein's novelette, "Coventry" as well as L. Ron Hubbard's "The Idealist" (published under the psuedonym, Kurt von Rachen). Part of number of titles on early science fiction.
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Keynes (John Maynard) THE GENERAL THEORY OF EMPLOYMENT INTEREST AND MONEY.
$15000
Macmillan and Co., Limited, London, 1936. First edition. Printing and the Mind of Man 423. *Landmark work by the most influential economist of the twentieth century: 'the work on which his fame as the oustanding economist of his generation must rest' [Dictionary of National Biography].
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The three voyages of Captain James Cook
$50000
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.
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Landfall, Environs of Sydney 1971 by Shay Docking (1928 - 1998)
$4200
The work consists of pencil drawings on four sheets of paper
with measurements of 20.5 x 101.5 cm. The works are signed, titled "Landfall" and dated 1971. Shay Docking's work is represented in the National Gallery, Canberra, all State galleries, many Regional galleries and University collections throughout Australia and New Zealand.
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Peppermint Trees, Melbourne c1860 by William Strutt
$5500
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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THE SECOND ENGLISH MIDWIFERY MANUAL. GUILLEMEAU (Jacques). Child-Birth or, the Happy Deliverie of Women.
$31000
First edition in English. Small 4to. 17 woodcut illustrations in the text. Contemporary limp vellum, title (twice) in early manuscript to the spine. London, by A. Hatfield, 1612.
A very fine copy in contemporary vellum of one of the earliest English midwifery manuals.
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.
And Quiet Flows the Don | Mikhail Sholokhov
$3100
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.
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Christina, the Maid of the South Seas; a Poem.
$4000
MITFORD, Mary Russell .
London: Printed by A. J. Valpy for F. C. and J. Rivington, 1811. First Edition.
Mary Russell Mitford's (1787-1855) second published title.A metrical tale based on the first news of discovery of the last surviving mutineer of the H. M. S. Bounty and a generation of British-Tahitian children on Pitcairn Island in 1811. As a manuscript, the work was apparently read and corrected by James Burney who sailed with Captain James Cook and the proofs were corrected by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A scarce item.
THOMPSON, Theophilus. Chess Problems.
$73200
Scarce first edition of the author’s sole work, marking the starting point of chess book publishing in African American history. Born into slavery in Maryland, Thompson became a house-servant following his emancipation and learned the game in 1872 after meeting John Hanshew, later the editor of the Maryland Chess Review. Thompson published this collection of 101 prodigious problems the next year, aged 18.
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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The Birds of Australia
$750000
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
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Rushcutter’s Bay, Looking South 1896 by Phillip Lee (1865 - 1909)
$4500
Phillip Lee 1865 - 1909 painted “romantic views of Australian scenery, notably coast scenes on the Illawarra Plains, the summit of the Bulli Pass, the Home of the Black-fish, Hawkesbury River, Fairy Bower, Manly, and the Blue Mountains." Refer SMH 27, March 1896.
His painting 'Native Sports 1880' was acquired by the NGA in 1969. 'The Pass, Bulli 1898' and 'Cascades at Fitzroy Falls, Moss Vale 1898' were sold by the Bridget McDonnell Gallery in 2006.
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Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov
$530
This is the First UK Edition of Lolita, which is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. Remarkably scarce.
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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.
![Post Office [1st UK]](https://rarebookfair.com/assets/catalogues/orchardbookshopadl@gmail.com/Bukowski-w.jpg)
Post Office [1st UK]
$1000
Bukowski's alter-ego Henry Chinaski at his finest [read most disgusting, most hilarious, most obscene, etc]. Post Office was Bukowski's first novel and his best. "It began as a mistake. It was Christmas season and I learned from the drunk up the hill, who did the trick every Christmas, that they would hire damned near anybody..."
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GOTHIC REVIVAL ILLUMINATION. FRENCH ILLUMINATOR. A suite of large neo-gothic illuminated initials.
$9250
Full-page frontispiece illustration with floral border and a central figure of a woman holding two shields in silver, blue and red; 29 illuminated initials in watercolour and gouache, gilded, and some partly with gold foil; all on wove paper. 1840-60.
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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