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.-
GONZALES DE MENDOZA, Juan.
The Historie of the Great and Mighty Kingdome of China, and the Situation thereof: together with the...
London, Printed by J. Wolfe for Edward White, 1588[/9].
First edition in English, rare, of the first significant European study of China, ‘one of the outstanding “best-sellers” of the sixteenth century’ (Boxer). A publication of enormous influence on Elizabethan conceptions of China, it also contained much information on the Spanish Americas. ...
£50000
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HAKLUYT, Richard.
The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over Land, to the most...
Imprinted at London by George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, Deputies to Christopher Barker … 1589.
First edition, a fine copy, with the world map, in a strictly contemporary London binding, of the first collection of English voyages.
£350000
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FOREST, BISSON FRERES, &c.
A collection of eight albumen prints (or salt and albumen collages) from mammoth-plate negatives...
France, 1864-5.
An exceptional series of oversize prints commissioned by the Compagnie de Chemins de Fer de l‘Ouest to commemorate the construction of a series of new bridges completed 1861–1864, including the metal bridge at Orival, later destroyed in the Franco-Prussian War, and the oblique stone bridge of...
£30000
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ABBEVILLE, Claude d’.
Histoire de la mission des peres capucins en l’isle de Maragnan et terres circonvoisines ou est traicte...
Paris, François Huby, 1614.
Second edition, enlarged and revised from the first edition published earlier the same year, a handsome copy. The first written account of the Capuchin mission to Maranhão, an island on the coast of Brazil, of which, Sabin notes, this is the earliest mention. In 1612 the mission, composed of...
£30000
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[ROZIER.]
Le rozier historial de France contenant deux roziers. Le p[re]mier rozier contient plusieurs belles rozes et boutons...
Paris, [Gilles Couteau for François Regnault], 26 February 1522 [i.e. 1523].
First edition, the very handsome Fairfax-Murray copy, of the Rozier historial de France.£25000
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PETRARCH, Francesco.
Librorum Francisci Petrarche impressorum annotatio. De ignorantia suiipsius et multorum liber I. De...
Venice, Simone da Luere for Andreas Torresanus de Asula, 27 March 1501.
Part one of the second collected edition of Petrarch’s Latin works (first Basel 1496), owned and annotated by the great Italian naturalist and physician Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605).
£16000
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DU HALDE, Jean-Baptiste.
A Description of the Empire of China and Chinese-Tartary, together with the Kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet,...
London, T. Gardner for Edward Cave, 1738 [– 1741].
The first complete English translation of Jean-Baptiste Du Halde’s Description géographique … de l’Empire de la Chine (1735), the ‘Bible of European sinophilia’ (Löwenstein).
£15000
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DELISLE, Guillaume.
Atlas nouveau, contenant toutes les parties du monde, ou sont exactement remarquées les empires, monarchies,...
Amsterdam, Jean Covens and Corneille Mortier, 1733.
A splendid atlas of hand-coloured maps by the great French mapmaker Guillaume Delisle (1675–1726) published by the eminent Amsterdam map publishers Covens and Mortier, prefaced with an introduction to geography by ‘the father of French cartography’ Nicolas Sanson (1600–1667).
£12500
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COPE, Walter, Sir.
‘Enchiridion. Certaine breife Remonstrances offered unto his Ma[jes]tie … Touching divers Inconveniences...
[London?], 1613.
A fine, unpublished manuscript treatise on the balance of trade, dedicated to James I, by the administrator, politician, and collector Sir Walter Cope (c. 1553–1614).
£11000
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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
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MENDES PINTO, Fernão.
The Voyages and Adventures of Fernand Mendez Pinto, a Portugal: during his travels for the space of one...
London, Printed by J. Macock, for Henry Cripps, and Lodowick Lloyd … 1653.
First edition in English, translated by Henry Cogan, of a travel best-seller, first published posthumously in 1614; there were nineteen editions in six languages by the end of the century, ‘rivalling the popularity of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. It is, in fact, an exotic and imaginative...
£7500
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RICCI, Matteo, and Nicolas TRIGAULT.
De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu. Ex P. Matthaei Ricii eiusdem...
Augsburg, Christoph Mang, 1615.
First edition. The ‘most influential description of China to appear during the first half of the seventeenth century. Trigault, the procurator of the Jesuits’ China mission, translated and augmented the pioneer missionary Matteo Ricci’s journal, aiming to elicit support for the mission....
£7500
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TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana.
Quesiti, et inventioni diverse.
Venice, Venturino Ruffinelli ‘ad instantia et requisitione, & a proprie spese de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano Autire’, July 1546.
First edition, annotated throughout by a contemporary reader, of Tartaglia’s highly influential work on ballistics and algebra, containing his polemical rule for solving cubic equations.
£6750
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MÜLLER, Gerhard Friedrich.
Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the north west coast of America. ...
London, T. Jefferys, 1764.
Second edition (first 1761) of this key work devoted to discoveries in northeastern Asia and northwestern America, including the Bering Strait, published by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to George III, ‘remembered in particular for some of the most important eighteenth-century maps of the Americas’...
£6500
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HELMAN, Isidore-Stanislas-Henri.
Faits mémorables des empereurs de la Chine, tirés des annales Chinoises, dédiés à Madame,...
Paris, chez l’auteur … et chez M. Ponce, [1788].
Two handsome engraved works by the French engraver and printseller Helman (1743–1806/9), here on uncut sheets, the first depicting scenes from Chinese history, the second episodes in the life of Confucius (Kong Fuzi).
£6000
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BURBURY, John.
A Relation of a Journey of the Right Honourable my Lord Henry Howard, from London to Vienna, and thence to Constantinople;...
London, Printed for T. Collins and I. Ford … and S. Hickman … 1671.
First and only edition of this account of a special embassy to the court of Sultan Mehmed IV, undertaken in 1664-5 by Walter Leslie, the Scottish-born Ambassador Extraordinary of the Holy Roman Empire. In his party was Henry Howard, later sixth Duke of Norfolk, along with the author John Burbury,...
£5750
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DENNYS, Nicholas Belfield (editor).
The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. A complete guide to the open ports of those countries,...
Shortrede and Co., 1867.
First edition, complete with all twenty-nine maps and plans, of this remarkable guide to the open ports of China and Japan in the late 1860s, aimed at ‘travellers, merchants, and residents’, compiled by Nicholas Dennys (1839–1900), a noted scholar of Chinese folklore, with the sinologist...
£5750
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[COYER; VOLTAIRE; WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION.]
‘Recueil des Pieces’.
France, 1744-1749.
An extraordinary sammelband of 75 pamphlets – 27 of which are recorded in only 3 or fewer libraries on OCLC – mostly relating to successful French exploits throughout Europe during the War of the Austrian Succession, including the Dutch and Italian campaigns and the conclusion of the war.
£5500
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GALLICO, Paul.
An archive of thirty-four scrapbooks compiled by Gallico.
1928–1972.
A lovingly and meticulously compiled archive of the writing career of the novelist Paul Gallico. The scrapbooks are arranged chronologically and by book/film with letters, telegrams, publicity materials, photographs and ephemera neatly intermingled with copies of reviews and reactions from local,...
£5500
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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