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. 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
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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
On the origin of species
$625000
London : John Murray, 1859. First edition. An entirely unrestored, crisp and sharp copy of one of the most significant publications in the history of humanity. Freeman, 373 “the most important biological work ever written.” Dibner, 199 "the most important single work in science.”
Ongeluckige voyagie, van’t schip Batavia, nae de Oost-Indien.
$225000
Amsterdam : Jan Jansz, 1647. First edition. The first full account of the wreck of the Batavia; the first European images of Australia; ‘an especially outstanding rarity’ (Wantrup). The earliest procurable book on Australia. The first printed views of Australia. The first published description of the kangaroo.
Liber Chronicarum (The Nuremberg Chronicle)
$165000
Nuremberg : Anton Koberger, for Sebald Schreyer and Sebastian Kammermeister, 12 July 1493. First edition, in Latin. The most substantial of all printed incunables and ‘the largest printing enterprise of the entire incunable period’ (Posselt).
The Mammals of Australia
$225000
London : printed by Richard and John E. Taylor for the author, [1845] - 1863.  "It was not until I arrived in the country, and found myself surrounded by objects as strange as if I had been transported to another planet, that I conceived the idea of devoting a portion of my attention to the mammalian class of its extraordinary fauna" (the preface). "John Gould's three-volume folio of Australian mammals is one of the best of all Gould's folios and the most engaging of all colour plate Australian natural history books, with some of the finest depictions of mammals ever produced" (Wantrup 2023).
Relation Herrn Petri Fernandes de Quir
$95000
Augspurg [i.e. Augsburg] : bey Chrysostomo Dabertzhofer, 1611. Rare first German edition of the Memorial octavo of the explorer Fernández de Quirós, a report relating the discovery of the southern continent or "Terra Australis Incognita".
For Sydney, N.S.W., from Battery Wharf, the first-class fast sailing American barque "Witch", 400 tons register ... Boston, October 18, 1869
$800
Boston, Massachusetts : Railway Steam Printing Works, 1869. Clipper card, 165 x 105 mm, lithograph-printed recto only in carmine, azure, and gold on white enamel card; at the head is a vignette illustration with a New Zealand scene, flanked by the United States and British coats of arms, and with the names of the shipping agents Neal & Crowninshield and ship owners Australasian Packet Line above and below; fine condition. Scarce and attractive clipper card advertising a sailing of the Witch, an Australasian Packet Line ship, from Boston to Sydney in October 1869.
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: the first New South Wales Pocket Almanack, compiled and printed by the first government printer, George Howe. As noted by Wantrup, 'about the earliest Australian printed book still available' (Joachim catalogue, 2016).
Ch’onha Chido (Atlas of all under heaven)
$12500
Korea : mid eighteenth century. Folio, 315 x 180 mm, original wrappers with manuscript title, twelve double page manuscript maps in colour. The Ch'onha chido (Atlas of the World) circulated widely in manuscript format in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as some rare woodcut editions. The maps would typically feature a world map, or Chonha-Do, based on Buddhist maps, with the others of Korea, China and Japan based on those made during the Ming Dynasty in China (1368-1644).