Catalogues

Online Catalogue #51

Online Catalogue #51

Highlights from our last offering for 2020 include an 1890s Yokohama Nursery Company catalogue with 142 superb handcoloured plates; Pastoral Homes of Australia (1931), the last volume – and possibly the scarcest – in the seven-volume series commenced in 1910; a selection of rare editions signed by J.M. Coetzee; and numerous ephemeral Boer War printings.

Photographs and autographs are also well-represented: among them are Indigenous Australian portraits; a significant collection of 44 vintage photographs (circa 1887-94) of indigenous life in the Bismarck Archipelago and German New Guinea by Richard Parkinson; a group photograph signed by Charles Kingsford Smith and the crew of the first trans-Pacific flight in 1928; items signed by Birdwood of Anzac, and a menu signed by 14 VC winners.

Season’s greetings and happy browsing!

Online Catalogue #50

Online Catalogue #50

Highlights of our latest catalogue include rare occult titles, many by or about Aleister Crowley. Militaria is also heavily represented, with many unique items. Not least is the deluxe menu and autograph album from the dinner given by the entrepreneur and politician Hugh McIntosh for VC winners on Armistice Day 1919: our copy is signed by sixteen of them.

Rare photographs include two albums with 110 hand-coloured images of 1880s Japan by Adolfo Farsari; a stereo-daguerreotype by Disderi of the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855; two Australian items depicting racial stereotyping, and a fine early portrait of an Adelaide Indigenous woman and child by Saul Solomon.

Our range of Folio Society publications offers an affordable indulgence with a handsome set of a favourite author: Churchill, Collins, Doyle, Eliot, Gibbon, Greene, Hardy, Nesbit, Orwell, Peake, Shakespeare, Tolkien, Trollope, Waugh or Wilde.

Happy browsing!

Firsts - London's Rare Book Fair 2020

Firsts - London's Rare Book Fair 2020

We are pleased to be exhibiting at Firsts Online, 14-20 September 2020. Click through to view our highlights list.

Online Catalogue #49

Online Catalogue #49

Highlights of our latest list include three striking prints by George Baxter relating to missionaries in the Pacific; Sturt's Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia (1849), with the provenance of fellow-explorer George Woodroofe Goyder; significant books and photographs by Charles Pearcy Mountford; an impressive group of Wunderlich trade catalogues; and an interesting selection of military and shipping history, vintage photographs, and ephemeral printings.

Happy browsing!

Online Catalogue #48

Online Catalogue #48

Normally, at this time of the year, we would be issuing our Picture Book to patrons at the Melbourne Rare Book Fair. But ‘the time is out of joint’, and this online catalogue, as agreeable as any we have issued, is no substitute for all that we are missing. On reflection, though, members of the antiquarian book trade must count themselves among the most fortunate of all small businesses these days.

Highlights of our current list include a copy of The Magic Pudding, inscribed and signed by Norman Lindsay, with an original pencil drawing of Bunyip Bluegum; an annotated copy of John McDouall Stuart's Explorations in Australia (1864) from the personal collection of Stephen King Jr, unofficial artist of Stuart's epic sixth expedition; numerous items relating to early Australian aviation and aerial photography; an autograph letter signed by T.E. Lawrence; Isaac Newton's Universal Arithmetick (1728, second edition); and sections on Australian inland exploration, natural history, town planning and private press books.

Happy browsing!

Online Catalogue #47

Online Catalogue #47

Highlights of our latest catalogue include an issue of Peninsula Press, the broadsheet issued in the field during the Gallipoli campaign; the 1971 deluxe edition of The Wind in the Willows, the first to contain the illustrations in colour, limited to only 250 copies signed by Ernest Shepard; an early twentieth-century designer binding by Margaret Chapman, one of the first professional craft bookbinders in Australia; a substantial collection of Jindyworobak publications; and Nova Architectura Militaris (1683), a very rare well-illustrated work on military architecture and fortifications.

And to celebrate the Captain Cook sestercentennial, we have two genuine rarities, one at $250, the other at $50,000.

First in, best dressed!

Online Catalogue #46

Online Catalogue #46

We trust our latest catalogue finds you in good health; either way, we hope it improves your day. Our selections of rare 1930s Australian political ephemera and vintage trade catalogues are a reminder of what we have lost (and gained).

Photographs on offer include some 1861 Mayall portraits of British Royalty, a suite of late nineteenth century portraits of SA’s governors and administrators, and an album featuring Stawell and the Grampians of the 1930s.

For the rest, there’s early Australian exploration, numerous Escutcheon Press titles, cricket, literature … over to you now!

Online Catalogue #45

Online Catalogue #45


Highlights of our latest list include an impressive album of photographs of Tolarno Station on the River Darling (circa 1914), rare Australian ephemera, association copies, trade catalogues, travel, motoring, gardening and more.

Stay well, and happy browsing!