Our latest catalogue contains numerous rare and fascinating items (not to overlook the many interesting and collectible ones too!). Militaria is well represented: there are signed letters from Montgomery of Alamein and Alexander of Tunis in a small archive relating to the WW2 service of two SA brothers, Fred and Percy Cockington (Percy was KIA in 1942); over 100 issues of the Special Siege Edition and Special Siege Slips of The Mafeking Mail (1899-1900); Souvenir of Sinai & Palestine. Compiled by Tpr. J. Ellis, 7th L.H. (an album of 96 original photographs of strong military interest); Shadbolt's Afghan Campaign of 1878-1880 (1882, two volumes), with 140 Woodburytype portraits of soldiers who lost their lives; and 132 Boer War stereographs.

Other important photographic items include Pictures from the Tyng Collection (1931), featuring a photogravure of the famous 'Bewegungs Studie [Study of Movement]' by Rudolf Koppitz; and 96 stereographs of famous disasters (from the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée to the Messina earthquake of 1908).

Numerous maps include Stanford's Library Map of Australasia (circa 1862, an uncut example, a mammoth 1455 x 1600 mm), and Smith’s New General Atlas (1809), containing 43 engraved maps with original hand-colouring.

A collection of material relating to John McDouall Stuart includes an unrecorded manuscript journal of the first seven weeks of his second exploring expedition (March-May 1859); an apparently unrecorded carte de visite portrait photograph of him; and The Book of Common Prayer (1860) with his signed presentation inscription.

Other signed books include works by or about Pelé, Ion Idriess, Charles Bean, Wing Commander 'Bobby' Gibbes, Professor Terence Tao (his 1992 MSc thesis), and artists Norman Lindsay, Justin O’Brien, Brian Dunlop and John Olsen (the last two with original artwork).

The broad selection of maps includes numerous early examples from the Pacific region and Australasia. Some stand-out items are Bowen’s Complete Map of the Southern Continent (1744) and Stanford’s Library Map of Australasia (circa 1862). The voyages of James Cook feature prominently, and other cartographers of note are Freycinet, Laurie & Whittle, Ortelius, and Zatta.

Blueback charts by James Imray and Son are well-represented (some of them annotated with tracks of voyages), as are attractive maps of the British Isles by Blaeu, Hondius, Janssonius, and Speed. Pictorial maps by Ernest Chase and MacDonald Gill are an agreeable fit with some Trompf tourist posters from the 1930s.

Notable autographs include Alexander Graham Bell, Sir Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Nelson Mandela, and American Presidents Wilson, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon … indeed, most of them all the way up to Trump.

The Apollo Program missions underpin the space memorabilia, with numerous signed covers by many of the astronauts made famous by the Moon landings, or in the case of Apollo 13, by NOT landing on the Moon. Space-flown items include a Robbins Medallion from the estate of Jack Swigert, pilot of the command module on the Apollo 13 mission, who uttered the often-misquoted words 'Okay, Houston ... we've had a problem'.

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 (ACST) on Sunday 31 August 2025.

Buyer's premium: 20%

Online bidding fee: as set by Invaluable.com (generally 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

View and bid on Invaluable.com

Picture Book XII, our Melbourne Rare Book Fair catalogue for 2025, is by design a list of highlights.

Literature and children’s books include a superb copy of the deluxe edition of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Tom Kitten (1907); signed copies of first editions by Virginia Woolf (Orlando, 1928), Stephen King (Six Stories, 1997), and Mem Fox (Possum Magic, 1983); and the very rare Bib and Bub Painting Book (1932), privately published by May Gibbs herself.

Botany is a real strength this time, with works by Robert Brown (Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae, 1810, and a presentation copy of the rare Supplementus Primum, 1830); Joseph Hooker (On the Flora of Australia, 1859); Charles Darwin (On ... Orchids, 1862, and other works); and Ferdinand von Mueller (Eucalyptographia, 1879-84, a presentation set inscribed to Dr David Wilkie).

'Treatment of the Horse in Australia | by Geo Hamilton 1864' is a complete suite of 11 original photographs mounted on cards captioned by the author. Possibly unique, it precedes the very rare published work of the same name, and is vastly superior in all respects. Other photographic items of consequence include a Disderi stereo daguerreotype of the 1855 Paris Exposition Universelle; an Australian hand-coloured half-plate ambrotype of a crude bush homestead (circa 1855-65); Duryea’s Adelaide Album (circa 1866), with its acclaimed panorama; and two superlative portraits of Indigenous Australians by Charles Mountford (from 1940 negatives).

The wrap-around cover on our catalogue reproduces a portion of an extraordinary watercolour panorama (over three metres wide) of Shaggy Ridge, the site of a crucial and hard-won victory by Australian soldiers against Japanese forces in New Guinea, produced in the field in early 1944 by Private William Ellis Green, later better known as the famous cartoonist WEG ...

We welcome in the new year with some impressive recent acquisitions, not least The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones, the third and best edition of 1868, with 112 chromolithographs. Less colourful, but considerably rarer – we know of no other example – is S.A. Legislative Council, 1868, an album of superb large-format portrait photographs by Townsend Duryea of all eighteen sitting members of the South Australian upper house in the year 1868.

The Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum is complete in five volumes (1893-1925); our copy of Aaron Arrowsmith’s A Comparative Atlas of Ancient and Modern Geography ... for the Use of Eton School (1828) is fully hand-coloured; Bushman Paintings (1909) contains 54 loose chromocollotypes of rock art of the San peoples of southern Africa; Enid Blyton’s Five on a Treasure Island (1942, third impression), the first title in the famous series, is complete with the first edition dustwrapper … the items on offer are nothing if not eclectic!