Melbourne Rare Book Fair opens tomorrow - Welcome by the ANZAAB President, Jonathan Burdon

Over 60 book-related events will be held over the ten-day period from June 30th. They are being promoted in the 2017 Program available at many antiquarian and general bookshops, libraries and other locations. Go on-line (www.rarebookweek.com ) to appreciate the wealth of interesting subjects that are covered within the program.

Rare Book Week culminates with the Melbourne Rare Book Fair to be held at Wilson Hall, University of Melbourne, opening at 6pm on July 7th. Twenty-nine exhibitors will be presenting a broad range of antiquarian, rare, interesting and generally fascinating books, manuscripts and paper ephemera. This year we welcome Kate Treloar of Adelaide’s Pop-Up Bookshop to the Book Fair. Kate has recently joined ANZAAB. She is a second-generation bookseller—her father Michael has run Michael Treloar Antiquarian Booksellers on Adelaide’s North Terrace for many years.

We also welcome our regular overseas exhibitors – Adam Gorfin from Ursus Rare Books (New York, NY), long-time ANZAAB members David and Cathy Lilburne of Antipodean Books, Maps & Prints (Garrison, NY) and Peter Harrington from London.

We are also delighted to welcome two newcomers to our book fairs—Jonathan Hill of Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller Inc. (New York, NY) and our first ever exhibitor from Tokyo, Japan, Kagerou Bunko. Of course, all the stalwarts of the Australian antiquarian book trade, who support us on a regular basis, will be present.

To all book lovers, bibliophiles, book collectors and, especially to those who are beginning to take an interest, I welcome you to Rare Book Week and the Rare Book Fair. You will meet like-minded people and see fascinating and interesting items. So, For the Love of Books we look forward to your attendance during Rare Book Week and at the Rare Book Fair.

The Melbourne Rare Book Fair starts Friday 7 July 2017
as part of Melbourne Rare Book Week.

Venue: Wilson Hall, The University of Melbourne

Opening Hours:

Friday 7 July: 6-9pm
Saturday 8 July: 10am-5pm
Sunday 9 July: 10am-5pm

Free admission’

It is all about print on paper

Leading Australian and international antiquarian booksellers will offer a rich and diverse array of items that cater for all who genuinely love print on paper and who share a passion for books, at prices to suit all levels of collecting.

SOME HIGHLIGHTS

TRAVEL AND HISTORY

Scare first edition of Eitel’s Cantonese Dictionary, 1877—$2,500

Rare mock-up China Pictorial, No. 11, 1976 issued to commemorate the death of Chairman

Mao Zedong on September 9th—$11,500

First edition of Galileo’s reply to the Jesuits concerning the Comets of 1618: Discorso delle

Comete di Mario Guiducci..., 1619—$53,000

The first alphabetically arranged catalogue of plant names: Conrad Gesner, Catalogus Plantarum Latinè, Graecè, Germanicè, & Gallice..., 1542—$43,000

The South Polar Times, 1907–1914—$32,000

The rare second issue of the account of the deed os Garcia Hurtado de Mondoza (1535–1609), by de Figueroa, 1616—$135,000

The third Spanish edition of Marco Polo’s Travels, 1529—$220,000

AUSTRALIANA

Ion Idriess’s scarcest and most sought-after work Cyaniding for Gold, 1939—$3,975

Captain Arthur Phillip, First Governor of The Colony [NSW], 1792. Paper slip signed,dated “2nd Dec., 1792” and annotated “Sydney” by Captain Arthur Phillip in ink, with accompanying gouache portrait on vellum—$16,500

Rare financial record from the gold rush period: Bank of Australasia Pass Book for John Satchwell, 1852–1860, with dated transactions in ink—$990

A fine example of one of the rarest illustrated works of Australian natural history: Lewin’s A natural history of the birds of New South Wales, 1838—$65,000

RARE MAPS and PHOTOGRAPHS

First edition of the first separately issued map of New South Wales, Arrowsmith, 1799—$45,000

19th century N. J. Caire photograph of Swanston Street Looking North—$900

Vintage silver gelatin postcard photograph, signed, of Houdini piloting his Voisin Biplane, 1910—$5,950

Aquatint and engravings relating to The Mutineers Turning Lieut. Bligh And Part Of The Officers And Crew Adrift From His Majesty’s Ship The “Bounty”, 1790—$18,900

Silver gelatin photograph by Carol Jerrems, c.1977, of Judy Morris smoking on the set of ‘In Search of Anna’—$14,500

LITERATURE

First illustrated edition of The Novels of Jane Austen, 1833—$15,000

First UK edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960—$975

A unique designer binding by Stephen Conway for a signed copy of J.M. Coetzee’s Summertime, 2009—$4,000

NATURAL HISTORY

John Gould’s Mammals of Australia—$295,000

MANUSCRIPTS

19th century manuscript diary of daily life in India, Arabella Jane Maitland, 1858–1961—$6,500

13th century illuminated vellum fragment from the Corpus Juris Civilis (Body of Civil Law), Bologna, c.1280—$1,850

CHILDREN’S BOOKS and COMICS

The first appearance of the much loved ‘Blinky Bill’ in Dorothy Wall’s Blinky Bill. The Quaint Little Australian, 1933—$795

The Sentry and the Shell Fairy: an advertisement for Shell Motor Oil, illustrated by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite—$900

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, c.1979-1981—$990

MILITARIA

WWI: 24 Government Gazettes from German New Guinea, c.1914-1918—$5,500

First edition of an early book on military technology: Joseph Boillot, Modelles Artifices de

Feu et divers Instrumens de Guerre..., 1598—$33,000

Nicolas de Fer’s Introduction a La Fortification, 1695, with 188 engraves leaves of fortified towns in France, enabling the reader to calculate journey distances from Paris to all the principle towns in Europe—$14,000

UNUSUAL and EPHEMERAL ITEMS

18th century Tapa cloth samples, Cook’s Voyages, c.1779—$7,500

William Dobell’s Bow-Ties, c.1950s—$2,650

Bodyline tactics: Bodywhine. A Treatise on the Jardinian Theory, by V. M. Branson.

Cartoons by R.W. Blundell, 1933—$950

Further highlights can be found on the website: www.rarebookfair.com

All exhibitors at the Melbourne Rare Book Fair are affiliates of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, ILAB.