Kay Craddock Antiquarian Bookselllers

Kay Craddock’s isn’t so much a bookshop as a place to find leather-bound pieces of history or rediscover once-treasured books you had long forgotten. Opening up on Bourke Street in 1967 and then on Collins Street since 1990, the shop brims with titles across a range of categories, from Antipodean literature and other assorted Australiana to bound volumes of complete works by Dickens, Shakespeare and Byron dating back to the 1800s.

Around the store, you can find glass cabinets displaying curiosities like a 1773 edition of Captain Cook’s Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries – a genuine museum piece available for purchase if for a lazy $18,000.

Even if you’re not a cashed-up collector, there are many affordable books for sale, including a $5 discount table and shelves full of children’s books where you can find much-loved titles no longer in print. The only items strictly not for sale are the hundreds of ornamental owls given to the store as gifts from family, friends and loyal customers as thanks for decades of their fine and rare book-collecting efforts.