Douglas Stewart Fine Books

    Member of ANZAAB - Australia

    Member of ABA - United Kingdom

    Aboriginal Australia Art: Australian Early Printing Norman Lindsay Pacific Voyages to Australia

Douglas Stewart Fine Books Pty. Ltd. is an antiquarian bookseller based in Melbourne, Australia. Our showroom is in High Street, Armadale, a precinct famous for its antique dealers, art galleries and bookshops. We buy and sell books both locally and around the world, working closely with clients to understand their collecting priorities and to source appropriate material. Our clients include libraries, galleries, museums, private collectors and fellow members of the trade. Since 2009 we have also exhibited regularly at leading international book fairs.

Douglas is a member of the major international trade associations, and his business is conducted according to their high ethical standards.

Our stock at Douglas Stewart Fine Books is diverse: we have rare books across all fields, but our strengths are in travel and exploration – particularly of Australia, the Pacific, and East Asia – as well as important books in the arts and sciences. In addition to rare books, we deal in all types of heritage material, including photographs, manuscripts, maps and globes, and fine art. Every month we issue a new online catalogue of New Acquisitions, and recommend that you join our email list to be the first to see what’s available. Please do not hesitate to contact us regarding any works you see online – we are always happy to assist with your enquiries.

Last, but not least, we buy books – from important single items to entire libraries – and we’d be pleased to provide advice on the best way to sell your collection.

Contact Information
Phone: +61 3 9066 0200
Website: http://www.douglasstewart.com.au
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720 High St Armadale, 3143 Australia Get Directions

Store Hours

Monday – Friday 10am – 6pm

Saturday 11am – 4pm

Closed public holidays

Highlights
The Birds of Australia
$750000
London : printed by Richard and John Taylor for the author, 1848. Eight volumes, imperial folio, finely bound by Sotheran and Co. in full green crushed morocco over boards, a clean, vibrant set in a firm and solid binding, an exceptional work with 681 full-page hand-coloured lithographs. The finest of all Australian colour plate books, and Gould’s ‘greatest achievement’ (Wantrup).
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The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay
$5750
London : John Stockdale, 1789. First edition. "Phillip's writing was like the man himself: honest, direct and unaffected ... It offers a full record of events both on land and on sea in the first months of the settlement, detailing the early expeditions of Philllip and the other officers into the interior around Botany Bay and Port Jackson ... The importance of Stockdale's Phillip must not be underestimated ... [it is] a key work and essential to any serious collection of Australian books." (Wantrup)
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Storm Boy
$500
Illustrated by John Baily. Adelaide : Rigby Limited, 1963. First edition. Octavo, illustrated boards in illustrated dustjacket (not price-clipped, verso foxed, edge wear), contemporary bookseller’s label to front pastedown, pp. 52, illustrated, occasional foxing, a good copy. The classic Australian children’s novel about a boy and his pelican set in the Coorong region of South Australia. The 1976 film adaptation Storm Boy won both the Jury Prize and Best Film at the 1977 Australian Film Institute Awards.
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Colombine. With an original etching and six illustrations by Norman Lindsay
$20000
Sydney : Art in Australia, 1920. Quarto, quarter vellum over green cloth, ruled in gilt, title label to spine, pp [x], 52, ten tipped-in black and white plates with captioned tissue guards, internally clean, the original signed etching 'Colombine' tipped-in (this is copy number 10). The deluxe edition, limited to only 31 copies, of which 25 were for sale, issued with an original signed etching. A rare piece of Lindsayana.
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Hyakumantō Dhāraṇī (百万塔陀羅尼) : an example of the earliest printed text that can be accurately dated (with the Jishin-in darani).
$85000
Japan : Nara period [764-770 CE]. Three-tier turned wooden pagoda made of hinoki (Japanese cypress), housed in the cavity of the pagoda is the original printed dhāraṇī, a fine, unrestored example. A rare example of the earliest printed text to have survived in Eastern or Western cultures that can be verifiably dated, pre-dating the movable type of Gutenberg by some seven centuries.
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Margaret Preston Recent Paintings 1929
$35000
Sydney : Art in Australia, 1929. The most sought after of all Margaret Preston books, with a magnificent signed colour woodcut.
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Watson's Bay and Beach, 1890s.
$200
Printing out paper print, 140 x 200 mm, numbered 374 in the negative; preserved as issued, mounted on the original green backing sheet, 230 x 190 mm, imprinted in black ink, upper centre: 'C. RUDD'S NEW VIEWS OF SYDNEY AND VICINITY.' Trove locates no copies of this photograph in Australian collections.
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[SPACE TRACKING / RADIO ASTRONOMY] Dedication of Tidbinbilla 64 metre antenna 13th April, 1973.
$1450
Navy blue cloth, upper board lettered in gilt 'Dedication of Tidbinbilla 64 metre antenna 13th April, 1973'; [12] b/w photographs and [1] colour photograph. A rare album of photographs commemorating the dedication of the NASA antenna at Tidbinbilla in the A.C.T. in April 1973. The album was privately prepared - likely in very limited numbers - and was presumably made for distribution to a small number of dignitaries and/or scientists connected with the occasion. Trove locates no other example; in fact, the album appears to be completely unrecorded. 
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The selfish gene
$950
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1976. First edition of the groundbreaking work by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins which posits a gene-centred basis for evolution, in essence the more genes that are shared between two individuals, the more likely it is they will cooperate together. Hugely popular at the time of publication and in print ever since, The Selfish Gene is seen as an extension of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Famously, it introduced the term meme for a unit of cultural evolution analogous to the gene.
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