About Us

The Business

We are the leading natural history specialist bookshop in Australia. Established in 1981, we hold a world class inventory in new, secondhand and rare antiquarian books and wildlife art. Rare natural history books are our specialty and we ship books to anywhere in the world. Our books are sourced from publishers and suppliers world-wide. We have large stocks of books on birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, botany, ecology, palaeontology, insects, marine, biology, aviculture, fossils, entomology and conservation. Our natural history stock covers books for Australia, Antarctica, America, Britain, Africa, Europe and Asia. Our wildlife art gallery regularly offers original paintings by Neville Cayley (junior and senior), Sarah Stone, William T. Cooper, Raymond Ching and Peter Schouten.

We are primarily a mail order business and ship world-wide. Our packing is of the highest quality and we employ a near full-time packer. However, we are committed booksellers and offer a full shop service. Our showroom is located in Prahran, Melbourne and is open normal business hours and no appointment is necessary. Our knowledgeable staff have backgrounds in zoology, scientific photography and the book trade. We pride ourselves on offering professional and prompt service to all our customers.

We issue hardcopy catalogues and email lists regularly, as well as offering our customers an efficient backordering service. To receive our email lists and catalogues Join Our Mailing List today.

We Buy Books. We are always keen to buy books in our field, from single copies to gigantic libraries. Please contact us by phone if you have anything you think may interest or complete the we buy books email form. If the books are of sufficient value we are prepared to travel.

We are members of ANZAAB (Australian and New Zealand Association of Antiquarian booksellers) and ILAB (International League of Antiquarian Booksellers).

The Owners

Andrew Isles

Andrew has a Bachelor of Science degree from Monash University in Melbourne majoring in zoology. This led to employment as a Research Officer with Fisheries and Wildlife (now the Department of Environment and Sustainability) followed by some work as a consultant zoologist. Book collecting was a major interest in his life before the business and it seemed logical to combine his interest in zoology, particularly ornithology, with his great interest in books. He started the business in 1981.

Belinda Isles

Belinda is also a zoologist with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in zoology. Belinda worked at the Museum of Victoria in the Department of Ornithology assisting the then Curator of Birds, Allan McEvey. She ran the department for two years after Allan's retirement and then left the Museum in 1990 and came into our business full time. Belinda is very much involved with ensuring that the new book side of the business runs smoothly (a difficult task).

Our Staff

Jane McHardy

Jane completed her Bachelor of Applied Science (photography) at RMIT in 2004. Jane joined Andrew Isles Natural History Books in late 2004 and has been responsible for customer orders and requests since then. She has recently taken over book processing and promotion. She also developed our image processing system and helped set up an in-house photographic studio for antiquarian material.

Bob Thornton

Bob is an important person in our business because he packs the books. This is something we have paid great attention to over the years and we pride ourselves on our quality packing. There is nothing worse than receiving damaged books in the post due to careless packing.

Isabella Burns

Isabella has a Bachelor of Business Studies degree from Monash University majoring in Accounting. She started work as our bookkeeper in January 2005 and is responsible for the day to day running of the company accounts.

Sasha von Ess

Sasha joined Andrew Isles Natural History Books in October 2005. Prior to this she worked at Asia Bookroom in Canberra for nearly 5 years where she developed an understanding of new, secondhand and antiquarian material. Sasha maintains our website and manages our specialised library supply service

Jane Dolan

Jane has worked at Andrew Isles Natural History Books since 1994. She recently returned part-time after a few years away. Jane specialises in data entry but knows the day to day workings of the business very well and performs a variety of tasks.

Claire Theiler

Claire joined Andrew Isles Natural History Books mid-2009 and is our specialist image processor and catalogue developer. Claire is trained in graphic design.

Jessica Sykes

Jessica joined Andrew Isles Natural History Books in January 2010. Jessica processes customer orders and requests and ensures our email correspondence is dealt with promptly. She is the first point of contact for most customers.