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Travel

Contact Jonathan Harrison, Alex Day, Andrea Mazzocchi or Katherine Thorn

We stock Western books in European languages, generally – but not exclusively – published before circa 1850. We are especially interested in early travel accounts – from the late fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries – in all areas beyond Europe.

Geographical regions in which we have tended to specialise include the Pacific and its surrounding countries – South America, the Northwest Coast of America, Japan, China, the maritime regions of Asia, including the Philippines and Indonesia, and Australia. Books on Africa, the polar regions, manuscripts and separately published maps are also handled.
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  1. NAVARRETE, Domingo Fernández. 

    Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China.  Descripcion...

    Madrid, Juan Garcia Infançon for Florian Anisson, 1676. 

    Scarce first edition, one of the most important early studies of Chinese history, religion, philosophy, and culture, by the Spanish Dominican Domingo Navarrete (d. 1689). 

    £4750

  2. NIEUHOF, Jan; Athanasius KIRCHER; and John OGILBY, translator.

    An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces,...

    London, John Macock for the author, 1669.

    First English edition, beautifully illustrated, recounting the Dutch traveller Jan Nieuhof’s journey as part of Peter de Goyer and Jacob de Keizer’s embassy to Peking between 1655 and 1657. Having previously been employed by the Dutch West India Company in Brazil, Nieuhof joined the Dutch...

    £4000

  3. NIEUHOF, Jan, and Georg HORN (translator). 

    Legatio Batavica ad magnum Tartariae chamum Sungteium, modernum Sinae...

    Amsterdam, Jacob van Meurs, 1668. 

    First edition in Latin, beautifully illustrated, of Nieuhof’s account of his travels in China between 1655 and 1657, one of the most important early modern non-Jesuit studies. 

    £5000

  4. NIEUHOF, Jean, and Jean LE CARPENTIER (translator). 

    L’ambassade de la compagnie orientale des provinces unies...

    Leiden, Jacob de Meurs, 1665. 

    Lavishly illustrated first French edition of Nieuhof’s travels through China from 1655 to 1657. 

    £3500

  5. [NOVA SCOTIA.]

    A Fair Representation of His Majesty’s Right to Nova-Scotia or Acadie. Briefly stated from the Memorials of the...

    London: Printed by Edward Owen … 1756.

    First edition. ‘Résumé très bien fait de toute la question des frontières de l’Acadie entre la France et l’Angleterre; mais écrit au point de vue de l’Angleterre seulement’ (Gagnon).

    £750

  6. OWEN, Robert.

    Robert Owen’s Journal. Explanatory of the means to well-place, well-employ, and well-educate, the whole population....

    London, James Watson, 1850-1.

    The first 23 issues of Robert Owen’s Journal, which would go on to reach a total of 104 issues ending in October 1852. Almost entirely written by Owen himself, the Journal was the main vehicle of Owenite social and political philosophy, directed to a general readership as well as policy-makers.

    £350

  7. PALMER, Robert Stafford Arthur, the Hon.

    A Little Tour in India.

    London: Unwin Brothers, Limited, The Gresham Press for Edward Arnold, 1913.

    First edition. Palmer was the son of the politician and colonial administrator William Palmer, Earl of Selborne, and was educated at Winchester College and University College, Oxford, where he took First Classes in Classical Moderations and Literae Humaniores, obtained distinction in the examination...

    £50

  8. PAPINI, Roberto.

    Le Arti d’Oggi: Architettura e Arti Decorative in Europa.

    Milan and Rome, Bestetti and Tumminelli, 1930.

    First edition of a thorough and extensively illustrated survey of architectural and artistic styles and artworks from across Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, compiled by the Italian art historian Roberto Papini (1883–1957), director of the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan and later...

    £300

  9. PARK, Mungo.

    The journal of a mission to the interior of Africa, in the year 1805 . . . Together with other documents, official...

    London, John Murray, 1815.

    Second edition, revised and expanded. Park perished in the course of this, his second expedition to Africa, but fortunately he had earlier sent back his journal, which is the basis of this volume. It was edited for publication by John Whishaw, who contributed a substantial biographical introduction....

    £400

  10. PARRY, William Edward, Sir. 

    Journals of the first, second and third voyages for the discovery of a north-west passage from the...

    London, John Murray, 1828. 

    First collected edition of Parry’s Arctic voyages in quest of the Northwest Passage, ‘a neat and convenient abridgement’ (Laughton, in DNB). 

    £450

  11. [PASCOLI, Livio.] ‘Vilio LOCASPI’.

    Del modo di mantenere abolita la mendicità, discorso familiare.

    Verona, Mainardi, 1817.

    Only edition, very rare, of this proposal for the abolition of begging, and of poverty more broadly, by the poet and essayist Livio Pascoli.

    £285

  12. PEETERS, Jacob.

    L’Atlas en abregé, ou nouvelle Description du monde, tirée du meilleurs auteurs de ce siècle …

    Antwerp, chez l’auteur, 1692.

    First edition of a charming atlas, the best-known production of Jacob Peeters (1637–1695), a Flemish engraver and publisher from an artistic family – his brothers Jan and Bonaventura were both artists. The map of the Americas shows California as an island; the allegorical engraved title features...

    £2500

  13. PENN, Christopher.

    The Nicholas Brothers & A. T. W. Penn: photographers of South India 1855 – 1885. With a foreword by John Falconer.

    London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 2014.

    An examination of the successful studios established by John and James Perratt Nicholas and Albert Penn in Madras and Ootacamund. The majority of the photographs are published here for the first time. Also includes a copy of the scarce Nicholas & Co. 1881 catalogue listing over 450 subjects.

    £45

  14. PERRY, Matthew Calbraith. 

    Narrative of the expedition of an American squadron to the China Seas and Japan, performed in the years...

    Washington, A.O.P. Nicholson, Printer, 1856. 

    First edition of the official account of the naval expedition that established diplomatic and commercial relations between the United States and Japan and forced the end of Japan’s self-imposed policy of seclusion from the outside world. 

    £4500

  15. POCOCKE, Richard.

    A Description of the East, and some other Countries.

    London: W. Bowyer for the Author, [‘and sold by J. and P. Knapton, W. Innys, W. Meadows, G. Hawkins, S. Birt, T. Longman, C. Hitch, R. Dodsley,...

    First edition, demy folio issue. The traveller and cleric Pococke (1704-1765), was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and graduated BA in 1725, BCL in 1731, and DCL in 1733. His family’s ecclesiastical connexions and his facility at navigating the complexities of clerical patronage enabled...

    £8000

  16. RICCI, Giovanni and PORTA, Ercolano.

    Storia della missione francescana e del Vicariato Apostolico del Hunan meridionale dalle sue...

    Bologna, Stabilimenti tipografici riuniti, 1925.

    First and only edition of this history of the Franciscan Mission in South Hunan from its establishment to 1924, with particular attention to the persecution of the Christians during the Boxer Rebellion and the following years of restoration and progress of the mission. The appendix comprises letters,...

    £450

  17. SAINT AULAIRE, Achille.

    Voyage autour du monde par St. Aulaire.

    [Clichy, Maurice Loignon for] Paris, Arnauld de Vresse, [c. 1864].

    A hand-coloured copy of this scarce and charming juvenile guide to twenty-four countries across the globe. The plates are adapted from those first published in Paris by Aubert circa 1845 under the title Récréations instructives: voyage pittoresque à travers le monde (Gumuchian 5037).

    £2000

  18. SAY, Jean-Baptiste.

    Olbie, ou Essai sur les moyens de réformer les moeurs d’une nation.

    Paris, Deterville and Treuttel & Wurtz, ‘an VIII de la République’ [1799–1800].[bound with:][ANON]. Principes politiques, par F. M....

    Presentation copy with the author’s inscription of the rare first edition of Say’s utopia, written in response to a competition organised by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques on the question: ‘Quelles sont les institutions capables de fonder la morale chez un peuple?’. Say...

    £5000

  19. SCHUSTER, Claud.

    Men, women and mountains. Days in the Alps and Pyrenees ... Foreword by Lord Sankey, G.B.E.

    London, Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1931.

    First edition, presented by William Bellows (1873-1942) to the distinguished Italian Alpinist, writer and photographer, Guido Rey (1861-1935).

    £100

  20. [SEVILLE.]

    Mercantile contract between Sebastián de Baeza of Seville and Hernán López de Segovia, almost certainly relating...

    Seville, 25 July 1576.

    A commercial document from the heyday of Seville’s trade with the Indies. Drawn up for Sebastián de Baeza, a resident of the barrio of San Bartolomé in Seville, the document recapitulates a previous agreement of 25 June 1576 between, on the one hand, Hernán López de Segovia and, on...

    £1200