Exploration on land, sea and ice is just one strength of our current list. Oxley, Mitchell, Parkinson, Mawson (a signed book) and Shackleton (an autograph letter signed) find themselves in the company of some serious military history. Limb's History of the 10th Battalion has impeccable provenance: a signed presentation inscription from the first Commanding Officer, Price Weir, to the second, Beevor.

Other rarities include desirable ephemera - such as Light Horse Regiment reunion menus, or the souvenir ticket from the first train trip across the Sydney Harbour Bridge - and some vernacular photography at its best (Maori cartes de visite, a striking portrait of an Aboriginal lad, an Afghan or Indian butcher in the Adelaide Hills). At the very least, it makes entertaining reading!

Impressive in both their very large format and impeccable provenance are two vintage photographs by Frank Hurley of Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914, from the personal collection of Sir Douglas Mawson himself.

Also on offer are Sir John William Downer's copies of the elaborate commemorative rolls from both the 1891 and 1897 Federation Conventions, signed by all the delegates (a Who's Who of Australian political history). Downer was one of only sixteen delegates to attend both conventions.

A fine selection of the acclaimed colour-plate books of George French Angas is available, including South Australia Illustrated (1847), The Kafirs Illustrated (1849), and Description of the Barossa Range (1849).

Other impressive illustrated books include limited editions signed by Edmund Dulac, Thomas Mackenzie, Arthur Rackham, Charles Robinson, and W. Heath Robinson. An eclectic range of manuscripts, photographs and maps rounds out the catalogue.

To view these items (and much else!) visit us at Stand 19 at the Melbourne Rare Book Fair, at Wilson Hall, University of Melbourne, 22-24 July 2016. For more details go to www.rarebookfair.com

Rare Books, Manuscripts & Vintage Photographs, including Exploration, Ethnography & Australiana

Sunday 10 December 2017 at 2pm ACDT

Important material from the collection of Thomas Worsnop (1821-1898), Town Clerk of Adelaide from 1869-1898, includes his 1852 emigrant shipboard diaries, and an extraordinary album of 1860s photographs. This is extensively annotated in an engaging anecdotal style, essentially forming an unpublished illustrated vernacular history of the lives (cultural and otherwise) of the battlers, the new chums, and especially the Indigenous people of South Australia in the period before 1870.

Other highlights include Sir John Morphett's set of Matthew Flinders's Voyage to Terra Australis (1814); Ernest Giles's Geographic Travels in Central Australia (1875), signed and extensively annotated by Giles himself; William Willshire’s Aborigines of Central Australia (Port Augusta, 1888); T.G.H. Strehlow’s magnum opus, Songs of Central Australia (1971); Wilkie Collins’s The Legacy of Cain (1888, the dedicatee's copy signed by the author); and the programme and script to Kerwin Maegraith's testimonial musical for the benefit of former fast bowler Ernie Jones, It Ain't Cricket (1933), in which Don Bradman, making his stage debut, hit into the audience a few tennis balls he and Jones had signed; one of these fabulous rarities is included in the lot!