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
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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Holinshed’s Chronicle leaf, 1577. The History of Scotland.
$185
One of Shakespeare’s primary history sources.
Woodcut illustrations of William the Conqueror's soldiers ransacking a village and Gentlemen submitting to King Malcolm's pleasure.
Holinshed was Shakespeare's favourite and most trusted source and he used it for more than a third of his plays, including Macbeth, King Lear, Cymbeline and the English history plays such as Richard III. Condition: At best, fair antiquarian condition, but despite faults, the main body of text is complete and legible and the woodcuts are sharply printed.
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Richard Hussey Shaw
$15000
Watercolour and gouache
31 x 42.5 cm
Signed R. H. Shaw and dated indistinctly
Provenance: Private collection until 2005
A later version of this painting titled South Australian Blacks in Full War Dress 1891 is in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia
Shaw arrived in Australia from England c1858 and settled in Adelaide. He was the son of Captain George Reynolds Shaw. He was a watercolour and scene-painter, produced watercolour landscapes and sketches of Aborigines in South Australia.
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A remarkable manuscript bifolium from the turn of the twelfth century. Gregory the Great’s letters in a clear, precise Carolingian script.
$8000
A bifolium fragment (1075-1125 CE, Southern Germany) from one of the most important documentary collections to have survived from the Middle Ages - Pope Gregory the First’s collection of letters.
Comprehensive research notes and a full translation of the Latin included with the document.
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Patti Smith: Complete [Signed 1st Ed]
$500
First Printing [Doubleday, New York, 1998]; xxii, 250 pages; black papered boards over cloth spine, titling in white to spine, photographic images for endpapers, a fine copy; in like illustrated dustjacket.
Signed in full by Patti Smith in Philadelphia under image of typewriter.
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FLINDERS, Matthew. A Voyage to Terra Australis. London: G. and W. Nicol, 1814
First edition, one of 1,000 copies of the standard issue text volumes, of "the most outstanding book on the coastal exploration of Australia... Such is the historical importance of this monumental work that no general collection of Australian books can be considered complete without it" (Wantrup).
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Par Voltaire, Siècles de Louis XIV et de Louis XV
$450
A nice set, published by Pierre Didot, Paris 1803, 3 Vols. 32mo. Buff leather spine, with Pink insert title and green volume with gilt letters, and various gilt decorations, boards marbled, endpapers marbled, edges yellow, owners ex libris Viet Valentin. Good-very good condition, silk bookmarks intact. Tom 1- II, 245pp lightly foxed, Tom III-IV 262pp edges lightly worn, interior bright with minimal marks, Tom V-VI 336pp light wear, inside bright.
Churchill (Winston S.) THE GREAT WAR.
$5000
Churchill (Winston S.) THE GREAT WAR. Fully illustrated with Photographs, Drawings and Maps. Complete in 26 fortnightly parts. Housed within two solander boxes of qr. blue morocco. George Newnes, London, n.d. [1933-4]. First illustrated edition. *Together with an additional copy of Part 21, which is signed by Churchill on the first page of text. First published in book form as The World Crisis (five volumes in six, 1923-1931). $5,000.00
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DEBORD, Guy [Director]. Internationale Situationnistes 1-12 (plus 3 supplements).
$3500
Paris: Internationale Situationniste, 1958-1969. First Edition. Twelve stapled softcovers : metallic paper covers in different colors : C.&c. : two supplements to no. 10 and one to no. 11.
Covers vary from very good (no. 8) to fine (nos. 1 & 4). Complete collection, first edition EXCEPT, as usual, for No. 2 which is a second edition (1962). The original no. 2 (1958) was produced in a very limited run hence the 1962 reprint which is notorious for the "peeling" of the silver metallic cover. (14959)
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L’Egypte et la Syrie, ou Mouers, Usages, Costumes et Monuments des Egyptiens, des Arabes, Et des Syriens.
$1500
Breton Par M. Precede d’un Précis Historique. (Uses, Costumes and Monuments of the Egyptians, Arabs and Syrians. Preceded by a historical summary.) 1814, Published by A Nerve. Paris. 8vo, brown boards with leather spines, with gilt decorations, red morocco in titles and volumes, gilt titles. Gilt edges, very bright, marbled pink endpaper, 6 Volumes (only 5 shown in photo). A most extraordinary set and worthy of a place in your collection.
Woodblock Printed Triptych of the Tsukiji Hotel in Tokyo
$2750
by Utagawa Kuniteru II
Superb woodblock printed triptych showing the first Western-style hotel in Tokyo, the Tsukiji Hotel, built in 1868, but sadly destroyed by fire in 1872. Titled in Japanese and English, 'Plan of Hotel at Yedo, T'Skege [Tsukiji] 1868'.
[Tokyo]. Publisher unknown. 1868. Each panel approx. 37 x 25cm.
In very good condition. Minor age wear. Centre panel has one small hole at upper left. Left panel has two very small holes at upper right. Otherwise very good. Unbacked with nice bleedthrough.
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Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland [Sangorsky & Sutcliffe]
$4750
81st Thousand [Macmillan, London, 1886]; two-thirds leather over decorative cloth boards, five raised bands, ornate gold decorations & titling on spine, leather a trifle rubbed at extremities, all edges gilt, decorative textured endpapers, very occasional light spotting, an excellent copy.
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