Butterflies of the Australian region by Bernard d' Abrera.

Not entirely true. Get "The Complete Field Guide to Butterflies of Australia" by Michael F. Braby and "Butterflies of the South Pacific" by Brian Patrick & Hamish Patrick and you can see practically every single subspecies present from Australia to Hawaii. The plates do not show the species in life size, but therefore the books fit into any bookshelf. The book by Braby has very detailed range maps along with information on host plants and several other informations. This combination only costs something like 60€ in comparison to 215€. Unfortunately there is no book that covers New Guinea as far as I know.

The best book about the Australian region is "The butterflies of Papua New Guinea" from M. Parsons.

Right, it's only about Papuan lep but each species is pictured, their behaviour and hostplants described, interesting theories on classification and so on.
A big book, expensive, but it really worths it !

Yes this book is fantastic, I would say it is my favorite book.
It is only about PNG though (but except for Delias, most species from West Papua also lives in PNG).

About West Papuan leps, there are other small books that could be useful as fieldguides (like "Mimika Butterflies" from R. Gotts and another book from H van Mastrigt on Arfak leps).

Finally people really interested in Papuan insects MUST read SUGAPA magazine (lead by Henk van Mastrigt and R de Vos).
Every 2 months, interesting articles on local expeditions, new species described and so on.
More details here : www.delias-butterflies.com/bibliography/

and here : www.papua-insects.nl/index/Hot%20news.htm

Oops, it seems B' d' Abrera was having one of those bad days when he was writing the Ornithoptera section in his Butterflies of the Australian Region [3rd edition], he placed O. meridionalis tarunggarensis as a subspecies of O. paradisea. Under O. meridionalis, he writes that not much is known of this the smallest of the Ornithoptera, its a pity he was not in good contact with his fellow lepidopterists, its biology had been studied many years before by Straatman and Pasternak. The Ornithoptera plates are much better in this edition and a number have been photographed again. Most of the P. ulysses group have better specimen images. Many new species have been added. I just love his section on Delias, although this sometimes may be out of date taxonomically. For a collector wishing to view as many specimens as possible from the whole of the Australian region, I would highly recommend this superb work.

To re-activate an old thread.. Does anyone have an answer to nomads original question? For some regions, such as the Moluccas, D'Abrera's work is still an important reference, although incomplete and in parts inaccurate. I use the 2nd edition and would also like to know if the 3rd edition is worth the investment.

Some important references not mentioned yet for the Moluccas are a series of articles intended to cover all the families eventually. As of yet only the parts on the Papilionidae and Pieridae have been published, but I'm told the Danainae are up next. The Papilionidae checklist was published in NEVA in 2005 and the other two as follows:

Vane-Wright, R.I. & Peggie, D. 1994. The butterflies of northern and central Maluku: diversity, endemism, biogeography, and conservation priorities. Tropical Biodiversity 2(1): 212–230.

Peggie, D., Vane-Wright, R.I. & Yata, O. 1995. An illustrated checklist of the pierid butterflies of northern and central Maluku (Indonesia). Butterflies, Japan (11): 23–47.

If I remember well this book "kupu kupu" is only about Arfak Mounts which have a rather distinct fauna than the rest of West Papua.

There is also a book about Timika butterflies and a book about Wau/Bulolo Valleys in PNG from M Parsons

I see that the D, Abrera Butterflies of the Oriental Region Part one, Papilionidae, Pieridae and Danaidae is currently out of print.

Whatever you think of Mr Bernard D Abrera as a taxonomist, I would suggest that there is nothing quite like his books that give you a almost complete butterfly family by family specimen photographic guide to a whole region. They are still important and very useful reference works.