Asia Bookroom

Member of ANZAAB - Australia

Asia Bookroom is a large open shop specialising in books on Asia with smaller sections on the Middle East and the Pacific. Our stock ranges from antiquarian and secondhand books through to ephemera, prints and maps and even some new books.

We sell to private customers and institutions around the world. Join our mailing list to receive tailored offerings of new arrivals in your particular area of interest and visit our shop next time you are in Canberra.

Highlights
Silk Shawl Sample Book from Wo Sang Company, Canton.
$2500
A sample book featuring 46 hand embroidered patterned samples for shawls, 2 swatches of uncoloured silk fabric and 32 silk colour swatches. Green cloth covered boards with gilt title and date on the upper cover, marbled endpapers, re-enforced at the inner hinges but otherwise firm and sound. An extremely attractive sample book with the colours bright and vibrant and measuring 20 x 30cm. Canton. 1928.
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[People of the world: suite of costume engravings]
$600
30 hand-coloured engravings each approx 4.8 x 4.5 cm, laid down in 5 rows beneath a mosaic window mount 54 x 61 cm, each with title text in English, French and German, tape residue affecting one, edgewear and minor loss, but an attractive assemblage in very good condition. (Nuremberg). (1830). Very attractive suite of single figure costume engravings prepared for the "The Earth and its inhabitants" an educational work for children by Bauer, the German family of globe makers. Ten of the figures are of European nationalities and twenty are from the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific.
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[Fan Showing Pictorical Map of Sojiji, Head Temple of the Sōtō Buddhist Sect]. 曹洞宗大本山総持寺.
$225
Black and white pictorial printed map of Sōtōshū daihonzan Sōjiji 曹洞宗大本山総持寺 on paper fan on bamboo frame, 24.5 x 2 x 2.5 cm, opens to 24 x 36 cm. Some light browning in folds. A nice copy. Kyoto. Meiji 33 [ 1900].
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St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney.
$750
Photo-lithograph, 40 x 28.7 cm; 56.3 x 43 cm (sheet including caption), the outer edges a little dusty and one lower corner creased, but in very good, clean condition. Rare atmospheric lithograph of the Edmund Blacket designed St. Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney, produced using the process pioneered by Samuel Phillips (a photographer) and Adam Stephan (a lithographic printer) in 1887 from their studio in Woolloomooloo.
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[Explanatory Map of the Recent Situation in East Asia]. 最近の東亜形勢図解. [Saikin no Tōa keisei zukai].
$1250
Large colourful folding map of East Asia, 79 x 109cm. Some creasing and closed tears along fold-lines that have been neatly repaired with archival material. A little browning along folds in lower right section of the map. A very striking map in very good condition. Published in 1937 this colourful pictorial map shows the dynamic military situation in East Asia from the Japanese point of view. The map covers Japan, Taiwan, China, and the Soviet Union, and shows existing tensions along the borders where numerous military personnel and machines are placed.
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[1934-5 Japanese Imperial Navy Training Squadron Tour Commemorative Album]. 昭和九・十年度.. 練習艦隊巡航記念. Shōwa 9-10 nendo. Renshū Kantai junkō kinen].
$2250
Colour map, two large folding panoramas including a very striking one showing Sydney, black and white photographic illustrations with captioned tissue guards in Japanese, three full-page colour plates show: a Malay House, an Australian rural scene featuring sheep, and an Australian couple walking in Sydney's Hyde Park by Minakai. Three tipped-in portrait photographs of the Japanese Royal Princes, profusely illustrated throughout with monochrome photographic plates showing the crew and ports of call with accompanying tissue guards titled in Japanese. [210 + 10pp], all edges gilt.
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[Dreamy Story of Australia and other essays by Professor Shigetaka Shiga]. 濠洲夢物語. 志賀重昂先生. [Gōshū yume monogatari. Shiga Shigetaka sensei.]
$425
Folding chart, 41pp, paperback, 21 x 15cm, text browned throughout, tide mark on chipped and browned wrappers, spine worn with loss of paper covering. Still a sound copy. This small book contains six pieces on Australia by Shiga Shigetaka (1863 - 1927), a Japanese geographer and thinker who travelled widely in the late 19th century. He visited Australia in 1886 during his trip around the Pacific and published a book, Nanyo Jiji (Current Situation in the Pacific) in 1887.
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[Self-improvement Sugoroku]. 出世双六. [Shusse sugoroku].
$350
Colourful folding sugoroku, 56 x 76 cm, tiny nick lower margin, a very good copy. A sugoroku game created for New Year 1935 and published by the children's magazine Yonen Kurabu. This is an example of the 'self-improvement' genre of sugoroku, where the images in the game provide moral instruction about the importance of improving one's lot in life and contributing to the nation. Each square in the game depicts a person who (we are told) started from humble beginnings but, though dedication and hard work, achieved personal success and contributed to the wellbeing of society.
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