Melbourne Rare Book Week – July to August 2026
What is Melbourne Rare Book Week?
A free city-wide festival celebrating the written, printed and illustrated word, proudly presented by Rare Books Melbourne.
RBW offers a rich selection of lectures, talks exhibitions and events that celebrate and explore the wonderful collections and amazing expertise that Melbourne, a UNESCO City of Literature, has to offer. The exciting program demonstrates how books and the stories that they tell can enrich the lives of us all.
Melbourne Rare Book Week has lots of wonderful events for ephemerists.
Not to be missed, ESA member Debra Parry is speaking on Carte de Visite, Cabinet Cards and Albums. Join Debra at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria as she looks at the early beginnings of popular photography, followed by a viewing of some of the beautiful albums used to hold cartes de visite and cabinet cards.
Cartes de visite were the earliest photographs to be widely produced and sold affordably, becoming very popular in the 1860s. Toward the end of that decade larger photographs, known as cabinet cards, also became common. Cartes de visite were collected and exchanged with family and friends, and often placed into albums specially manufactured to hold them. Intended to be sumptuous, these albums were generally bound in leather, and adorned with decorative features such as gold tooling, or brass clasps.
