Catalogues

Sydney Rare Book Fair 2026

Sydney Rare Book Fair 2026

By the time we finished preparing our paperwork for the transit insurance for our Sydney Book Fair stock, we realised we’d compiled a decent catalogue into the bargain, and had sufficient time to edit it for circulation. This is a bonus for those of you who can’t make it to the event in person, so happy browsing!

Collectible children’s books are one attractive feature of our stand: these include a thumb Bible in Miniature, a superb example in the original publisher's red morocco gilt, with inlays (circa 1806); a first edition Possum Magic (1983), signed by Mem Fox; the Bib and Bub Painting Book, privately published by May Gibbs in 1932; four early Beatrix Potter first editions, including a near-fine copy of the rare deluxe edition of The Tale of Tom Kitten (1907); and assorted A.A. Milne items, including a first edition of The House at Pooh Corner (1928, with the dustwrapper), and a genuine rarity, The Very Young Calendar 1930 (with verses by A.A. Milne, and decorations by E.H. Shepard). From the same collection comes an original pen and ink cartoon drawing by Ernest Shepard, and two autograph letters with Australian content.

Other strengths include literature, art (especially Norman Lindsay), fine press and signed books, Australian exploration, photography, natural history, and more.

Catalogue 93

Catalogue 93

Our current catalogue contains an eclectic selection of 200 items, including numerous signed copies. One highlight is Recklings (1966), a rare volume of verse by Ted Hughes, one of only 150 signed copies, with a further signed inscription to his brother. Some of the other authors featured are David Malouf (including Four Poets, 1962), J.M. Coetzee and Richard Flanagan … and Michael Leunig has executed a delightful small pen drawing of his archetypal everyman in another work.

Photographs are another notable inclusion: over 200 stereographs of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05; nine 1880s stereoviews of Sydney by Kerry & Jones; 'Samoan Beauties', an album of photographs by Thomas Andrew (circa 1900); and Tree Portraits (1956) by Charles Mountford, a presentation copy with a signed vintage print of one of the photographs reproduced in the book.

The cover image for this catalogue shows some of the seventeen hand-painted bookplates for (and likely by) Charlotte Louise Burckhardt (1862-1892), the model for John Singer Sargent's famous portrait 'Lady with the Rose'.

From antiquarian books to vintage ephemera … happy browsing!

Catalogue 94

Catalogue 94

Highlights of our current catalogue include a group of 10 Frank Hurley photographs from Sir Douglas Mawson's British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE), 1929-1931.

The New Burlington Galleries October 1938 catalogue, Picasso's 'Guernica' with 67 Preparatory Paintings, Sketches and Studies, and the issue of the short-lived British surrealist journal, London Bulletin, October 1938, Number 6, featuring illustrated articles on 'Guernica', are rarities of great interest. 

More parochial, but again of great interest and rarity, is the near-complete run (40 of 42 numbers) of Ivor's Art Review.... An Adelaide Commentary on Contemporary Art Affairs, written and published by Ivor Francis (1956 to 1960).

For the first time in decades, we will be exhibiting at the Sydney Rare Book Fair (Thursday 22 to Saturday 24 October). Ours is an impromptu entry, a cameo appearance one might say, so we have not had time to prepare a catalogue for the event. However, there is very little overlap between the contents of this regular catalogue and our stock at the book fair, so it should be worth your while to come and visit us at Stand 1.

Catalogue 92 | Melbourne Rare Book Fair 2026

Catalogue 92 | Melbourne Rare Book Fair 2026

Our current catalogue incorporates our recent Picture Book 13, containing 75 highlights from our stock at the forthcoming Melbourne Rare Book Fair. This expanded version contains an additional 75 items for sale at our stand.

Nothing if not topical, old if not new: we have editions of Homer’s Odyssey from 1524 and 1609.

Accounts of other journeys include rare Burke and Wills material; Harry Perry’s Pioneering. The Life & Work of the Hon. R.M. Collins MLC (1923: an extensive typescript, with manuscript corrections and addenda, of the life of this Queensland pastoralist and explorer); the first edition of Alice Duncan-Kemp’s Our Sandhill Country (1933, complete with the rare dustwrapper); and signed limited editions of works by Len Beadell and Peter Muir (the legendary ‘Pituri Pete’).

We also have numerous Indigenous Australian portraits (including one of twin babies); Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first book of poetry, Songs of Action (1918, a later impression, albeit signed and with a superb inscription); and an extraordinary album of over 160 personal snapshots compiled by a German soldier during the offensives in Poland, France and the Netherlands between August 1939 and May 1940.

Some very recent purchases, too late for inclusion in the catalogue, will also be available for those of you fortunate to be able to visit the fair. Not least, there are some 200 pieces of late 1940s trade ephemera, many of them relating to household appliances, including radios, radiograms, vacuum cleaners and refrigerators.

Picture Book 13

Picture Book 13

Picture Book 13 contains highlights from our selection of stock for the forthcoming Melbourne Rare Book Fair (30 July–1 August).

An item of global scientific importance is James Clerk Maxwell's A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (two volumes, second edition, 1881). It is the personal working set of Sir Joseph John Thomson (Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of the electron), with extensive annotations in his hand made while editing the third edition of Maxwell's important treatise. Later provenance includes his son, Sir George Paget Thomson, also a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

We are also offering, as one lot, eighteen original 1840s watercolours (many of them unpublished) by George French Angas of Rio de Janeiro and the peoples of Southern Africa. The Brazilian views show Rio before the campaign of urban renewal which saw much of the historic colonial centre demolished and the city's hills levelled. The African pictures include striking depictions of individuals from various ethnic groups of southern Africa.

Or if a little light reading is more to your taste, we have a dozen of the finest copies extant of first editions of the earliest works of P.G. Wodehouse; a near-complete run of 50 issues of Virgil Reilly’s comic book series, The Adventures of Silver Flash and his Frog-men (1950-55); and a copy of the deluxe leather-bound issue of the first edition of Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) to whet your appetite.

Also well-represented are vintage photographs, autographs and manuscripts, maps, military history and travel. If you can’t make it to Wilson Hall for the fair, you can at least enjoy this preview from your armchair.

Catalogue 91

Catalogue 91

An undoubted highlight (and definitely the heavyweight offering!) in our current catalogue is the complete set of six volumes of Forshaw and Cooper's acclaimed series, Kingfishers and Related Birds (1983-1994).

First-hand accounts of voyages and expeditions include the first collected edition of Sydney Parry's Arctic voyages (three volumes, 1828-29), and Voyage of Discovery to the Southern Lands by François Péron, continued by Louis de Freycinet (three volumes, 2003-2008), the first full edition in English of the official account of the 1800-03 French voyage of exploration to Australia under the command of Nicolas Baudin. We have one of the deluxe edition of only 99 sets of the text volumes and 150 copies of the atlas, in the total edition of only 400 sets.

David Lindsay's Expedition across Australia from South to North, between the Telegraph Line and the Queensland Boundary, in 1885-6 (1889), and A.C. Gregory’s Journal of the North Australian Exploring Expedition (1858) both contain large folding colour maps.

A range of individual antiquarian maps are also available, including Magini's Universi Orbis Descriptio ad usum Navigantium (1598), and Lodge's A New and Accurate Chart of the Discoveries of Capn. Cook and other later Circumnavigators (circa 1797).

The first edition in English of The Plague by Albert Camus (1948), a proof copy of Colin Wilson's Ritual in the Dark (1959), and signed copies of over two dozen works by J.M. Coetzee, including proof copies and other rarities, are some of the many other items of genuine interest.

Catalogue 90

Catalogue 90

Unusual maps are some of the highlights of our latest catalogue: MacDonald Gill’s eye-catching poster maps of Australia and New Zealand issued during the Second World War are one thing; John Arrowsmith’s The District of Adelaide, South Australia from 1840, is something else again!

Signed items are in abundance, including an autograph letter signed by Edmund Dulac; two small signed drawings by Clifton Pugh; books signed by J.M. Coetzee, Nancy Cunard and Leon Carmen (aka Wanda Koolmatrie); signed photographs of Admiral Edward Evans, Dame Nancy Buttfield and Pelé; and autographs of Jørn Utzon and Gough Whitlam.

Accounts of voyages include Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes by Charles de Brosses (two volumes, 1756); and Voyage of Discovery to the Southern Lands by François Péron, continued by Louis de Freycinet (three volumes, 2003-2008). This is one of only 400 sets of the first full edition in English of the official account of the 1800-03 French voyage of exploration to Australia under the command of Nicolas Baudin.

Catalogue 89

Catalogue 89

The year is no longer new, we are no longer in holiday mode, and our latest catalogue is on its way. Eclectic is the word!

Some of the highlights are Macdonald Gill’s poster map commemorating the Atlantic Charter; a signed copy of the thesis Terence Tao submitted for his Degree of Master of Science in August 1992 (a month after his seventeenth birthday); and Sir Isaac Newton’s Universal Arithmetick, or, a Treatise of Arithmetical Composition and Resolution (1728 ‘Second Edition, very much Corrected’).

Other items include a complete set of The Folio Society edition of Patrick O’Brian’s acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin series; Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, par Monsieur Bayle (1697, first edition, four volumes); Gifford Chapman’s Wooden Fishing Boats … off Kangaroo Island (1998); and two superb portrait photographs of Dame Roma Mitchell (1913-2000) in court dress, taken on the occasion of her appointment as Queen's Counsel in 1962.