Melbourne Book Fair 2020

Melbourne's 2020 Rare Book Fair had to be exclusively online. We showed a beautifully atmospheric watercolour of the Yarra River in dawn light by Julian Rossi Ashton; the original midshipman's log of a particularly interesting voyage to Australia 1852-54, illustrated with most attractive unpublished drawings including a suite of four charts showing a dated track of the voyage, a fine double-page map of "Port Phillip 1853" with detailed soundings, and a series of sixteen coastal drawings; and the first South Australian illustrated book published, the rare suite of original views by Frederick Nixon.