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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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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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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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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Jeffrey Smart (deluxe edition with original signed etching)
$12000
Gryphon Books, 1983. Quarto, gilt-titled quarter morocco over grey linen, black buckram slipcase, pp 131; the deluxe edition, limited to 100 numbered copies signed by the artist on colophon at rear, with a limited edition colour etching ‘Man with Bouquet’ (240 x 195 mm) signed by Smart loosely enclosed at front.
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New South Wales Pocket Almanack, for the Year of Our Lord 1814;
$20000
Sydney : Compiled and Printed by G. Howe, Government Printer, [1813]. One of the earliest books printed in Australia, compiled and printed by the first government printer, George Howe.
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The illustrated voyage journal of a French naval officer written during the circumnavigation of the Artémise under Captain Cyrille Laplace (1837-1840).
$275000
The complete illustrated manuscript journal of French naval ensign Louis Raymond de Montaignac de Chauvance (1811-1891), including his original daily journal kept on board l’Artémise, under the command of Captain Cyrille Pierre Théodore Laplace (1793-1875), during its circumnavigation in 1837-1840. Illustrated with numerous watercolours documenting the voyage to Malacca, Batavia, Cochinchina, Manila, Macao, Hobart and Sydney (reprising his visits in 1831, during his first circumnavigation in La Favorite), Tahiti, California, Peru and Brazil.
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Winged fairy with bubble
$12500
Watercolour on card, 250 x 175 mm, initialed in ink lower right ‘I.R.O’, housed in a period moulded white timber frame. A stunning watercolour by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite featuring her most beloved subject, a winged fairy, interacting with a magical bubble.
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Selbstdarstellung (signed copy)
$9500
The second edition of Freud's autobiography, greatly enlarged and revised. Signed by the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).
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Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. (Signed edition for Black Saturday bushfire survivors)
$2750
London : Bloomsbury, 2001. ‘Celebration’ edition. Signed by J. K. Rowling on an Allen & Unwin publisher’s label affixed to the half-title, for Black Saturday bushfire victims and survivors in 2009, with hologram J. K. Rowling authenticity sticker, and printed message from the author inside the upper wrapper. This particular example was given to Australian author Ella Holcombe, who tragically lost both her parents, her home, and her family dog in the bushfire. Accompanied by her own book for children, 'The House on the mountain', inspired by those tragic events.
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