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.

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.

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.

Our current auction consists primarily of original photographs (many signed) and photogravures, monographs and illustrated books (again, many signed), and numerous nineteenth century photograph albums (comprising wide-ranging Australian material, world travel, and private compilations).

All items come from the collection of Melbourne photographer and pioneering gallerist Joyce Evans OAM (1929-2019).

Signed photographs include works by André Kertész (nine, including Melancholic Tulip, 1939), Roman Vishniac (four), and Minor White (six). Camera Work, Numbers 1 and 2 (1903) bound as one volume, is complete with all photogravures (including The Hand of Man, signed in pencil by Alfred Stieglitz); Camera Work Number 30 (1910) is his signed presentation copy to George Bernard Shaw; and numerous photogravures from Camera Work include prints by Alfred Stieglitz, Baron Adolf de Meyer and Alvin Langdon Coburn.

There are more than 40 nineteenth century albums. Highlights include the Album by W. Blackwood of Sydney Banks (1859) and S.A. Legislative Council, 1868, Townsend Duryea's impressive (and exceedingly rare) album of large-format portrait photographs of all eighteen sitting members of the South Australian upper house.

Signed books include works by Ansel Adams, Max Dupain, Sam Haskins, Bill Henson, J.W. Lindt, Tim Page and James Wedge.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

This is an online-only timed auction hosted by Invaluable.com. There will be no in-room bidding for this sale.

Lots will begin to close starting at 2 pm (ACDT) on Friday 12 December 2025.

Buyer's premium: 20%

Online bidding fee: as set by Invaluable.com, usually 5%. You will be shown the exact amount when confirming your bid.

Click on each lot to see a full description and additional images.

All items are available for viewing at our North Terrace premises. However, for the majority of you who are not Adelaideans and for whom personal inspection is not an option, all items are accurately described and photographed, and are covered by our conditional guarantee.

Please ensure you have read the Conditions of Sale in the ‘Terms’ section at the foot of any lot description.

If you have any questions, please contact us on (+61) 08 8223 1111 or at treloars@treloars.com

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