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 began buying and selling books in 1995, while still in high school. He is a member of the major international trade associations, and his business is conducted according to their high ethical standards. For many years Douglas has been a Board member of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian Booksellers (ANZAAB); serving as President 2019 - 2023.

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 and the Pacific – and Australian art. 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

Highlights
[SYDNEY] Presentation photograph album of views of Manly, New South Wales, presented to pioneer resident and long-serving mayor of the municipality, Charles Hayes, in 1907.
$5000
A unique presentation album of Manly views, associated with the most significant public figure in the early colonial history of this Northern Beaches municipality, Charles Hayes (1841-1924). Elaborate watercolour decorations and views of Manly (harbour side) and Charles Hayes’ Manly residence; followed by 25 sepia-tone gelatin silver prints individually mounted on the rectos of leaves, each with floral border decoration in watercolour.
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[FIRST FLEET] A convict awaiting transportation to Botany Bay writes to Lord Sydney, Secretary of State, in an attempt to have his sentence commuted. Newgate Prison, 9 May 1787.
$12000
A rare example of a First Fleet convict letter. Manuscript letter in ink on laid paper, one page quarto, with a conjugate leaf with address panel and red wax seal; dated at ‘Newgate, 9th May 1787’, signed ‘Thos. Baker’, and addressed to ‘Right Honble. Lord Sydney, Secretary of State’; the letter is written in a fine hand, apparently by a scrivener on the prisoner’s behalf (see below); old folds, conjugate leaf with small marginal loss where the seal was broken; a very well preserved document.
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A walk in Sydney streets on the shady side (with 20 lithographed illustrations)
$3500
Sydney : Nelson P. Whitelocke, [1885]. Privately published in Sydney in 1885, this rare and highly evocative graphic work documents – with the empathetic eye of an artist possessing a strong social conscience – the city’s poor and working-class types, as well as the appearance (and sounds) of its streets.
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On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (fourth edition)
$12500
London : printed by W. Closes and Sons for John Murray, 1866. Fourth edition. Octavo, original green cloth, boards blocked in blind, spine gilt (light bumping to corners, very minor stains), green endpapers, contemporary owner’s inscription in pencil ‘M Purser 1867’ to half-title, pp. xxi; [blank], 593; [blank] 32 (publisher’s catalogue dated January 1865), folding lithographic plate by William West after Darwin, one quire slightly sprung, a fine copy of the fourth edition, entirely unsophisticated, crisp, complete and unrestored.
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A journal of a tour of discovery across the Blue Mountains, in New South Wales, in the year 1813.
$1850
The second edition, published in 1870 by the explorer’s son, as the first edition from 1823 was now unprocurable. The journal accounts the first successful crossing of the Blue Mountains, opening up westward settlement in New South Wales. At the auction of the Davidson Collection 2006 a copy of the first edition of 1823 sold for $407,750, while the second edition (as here) sold for $7573.
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An early copy of a letter by James Cook to John Walker of Whitby, reporting on Cook’s first voyage.
$45000
Stockton : Joshua Reeve, December 16, 1774. Manuscript, 3½ pages, [2] sheets, foolscap (260 x 230 mm), written in ink in a uniform, copperplate cursive; old folds (now fragile, one expertly repaired), each sheet with a few small perforations (not affecting legibility), some roughening to the edges and scattered spotting; signed at the foot Joshua Reeve scrpt. Stockton, Decemr. 16 1774. A very early copy of an important, informative letter by James Cook, which contains Cook’s impressions of the indigenous people of New Holland.
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[COOK] Newton’s new & improved terrestrial pocket globe 1817
$17500
London : John Newton, 1st January 1817. Terrestrial pocket globe, 3 inches in diameter, engraved gores with original hand colour over papier-mâché and plaster sphere, in the original publisher’s shagreen case, titled Newton’s improved pocket celestial globe. A rare and attractive miniature pocket globe showing Cook’s third voyage.
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The Bouquet of Sydney
$4500
Hamburg : C. Adler, before 1868. Chromolithographed and engraved folding card in the shape of a bouquet of flowers, housed in the original gilt-printed envelope with a lithographed view of Sydney, lettered in gold, the view measuring 520 x 118 mm, the envelope 86 x 142 mm, a fine example. Adler’s Bouquet of Sydney, a highly ephemeral piece, the charming envelope bearing a view of Sydney from the North Shore, housing the fragile and rare diecut souvenir with 26 engraved views of Sydney.
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