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Contact Jonathan Harrison, Alex Day or Andrea Mazzocchi

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. [MACARTNEY EMBASSY.]

    Archive of letters and documents from the Macartney Embassy to China.

    Britain and China, 1792–1833.

    A remarkable and largely unpublished archive from Lord Macartney’s embassy to China of 1792–4 – a pivotal moment in relations between China and the West – including a diplomatic autograph letter signed by Macartney, autograph correspondence between him and other leading figures of the mission,...

    £75000

  2. GONZÁLES DE MENDOZA, Juan, and Robert PARKE, translator. 

    The Historie of the great and mightie Kingdome of China,...

    London, Printed by J. Wolfe for Edward White, 1588 [or 1589]. 

    First edition in English, rare, of the first significant European study of China, ‘one of the outstanding “best-sellers” of the sixteenth century’ (Boxer). 

    £50000

  3. 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

  4. THOMSON, John.

    Illustrations of China and its People. A Series of two Hundred Photographs, with letterpress descriptive of the...

    London, Sampson Low &c, 1873–1874.

    A good copy of this rare work (vol. I marked second edition, the rest first editions), showing superb images of Imperial China including rare portraits of high government officials as well as a large number of architectural and scenic views; this item ranks amongst the most spectacular photographically...

    £35000

  5. 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

  6. 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, of 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...

    £30000

  7. [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

  8. HAKLUYT, Richard.

    The principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over-land,...

    London, George Bishop, Ralph Newberie, and Robert Barker, 1598 [– 1600].

    Second edition, first issue of ‘Hakluyt’s monumental masterpiece, and the great prose epic of the Elizabethan period’ (Penrose), complete with the section on the conquest of Cadiz by Essex (vol. I, pp. 607-619) ordered suppressed by Elizabeth I in 1599 (in ESTC state 1a).

    £20000

  9. SPILBERGEN, Joris van, and Jacob LE MAIRE.

    Speculum orientalis occidentalisque Indiae navigationum; quarum una Georgii a...

    Leiden, Nicolaes van Geelkercken, 1619.

    First Latin edition of one of the classic Dutch illustrated voyages, identical in format and illustration to the same publisher’s Dutch-language edition of the same year.

    £20000

  10. NIGHTINGALE, Florence.

    Notes on Matters affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army.

    London, Harrison and Sons, 1858.

    First edition, printed for private circulation only, of Florence Nightingale’s pioneering report on the sanitary condition of the British Army, resulting in a radical reform of the administration, sanitation, and nursing practices at large, this copy with remarkable nursing association.

    £18000

  11. 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’ (Löwendahl). Based on the reports of major Jesuit missionaries, and shaped by the earlier Historia of Martini and Mémoires of Le...

    £15000

  12. [SWIFT, Jonathan.]

    Some Observations upon a Paper, call’d, the Report of the Committee of the most honourable Privy-Council in...

    Dublin, Printed by John Harding … [1724].

    First edition of the third of Swift’s Drapier’s letters, bound with other works including two further pamphlets on Wood’s coinage (Remarks upon Mr. Wood’s Coyn and Proceedings by Sir Michael Creagh, and A Word or two to the People of Ireland, concerning the Brass Money),...

    £12500

  13. SICARDO, José.

    Christiandad del Japon, y dilatada persecucion que padecio. Memorias sacras, de los martyres de las ilustres religiones...

    Madrid, Francisco Sanz, 1698.

    Rare first edition of this important and comprehensive account of Christian missions to Japan by the Spanish Augustinian José Sicardo (1643–1715).

    £12000

  14. DAMPIER, William, et al.

    A Collection of Voyages. In four volumes. Containing I. Captain William Dampier’s voyages round...

    London, for James and John Knapton, 1729.

    The first collected edition, ‘considered by many to be the best’ (Hill), illustrated with seventeen maps and forty-six plates.

    £9500

  15. LATHAM, Simon.

    Latham’s Falconry: or, the Faulcons Lure, and Cure: in two Books. The first, concerning the ordering and training...

    London, Printed by Thomas Harper, for John Harison, 1633.

    First collected edition (third edition of volume I, originally published in 1614 and reissued in 1615, second edition of volume II, originally published in 1618).

    £8500

  16. POCOCKE, Richard. 

    A Description of the East, and some other Countries.  London: W. Bowyer for the Author, [‘and sold by J. and...

    [Nourse, and J. Rivington’ (I)], 1743–1745. 

    First edition, demy folio issue. A successful churchman Pococke (1704-1765) is now best remembered as a traveller and mountaineer. His earliest journeys were undertaken between 1733 and 1736 through continental Europe. His ‘next and most ambitious journey, from 1737 to 1740, was to the Near...

    £8000

  17. TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana.

    Quesiti, et inventioni diverse.

    [(Colophon:) 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

  18. CÉSPEDES Y MENESES, Gonzalo de.

    Varia fortuna del soldado Pindaro.

    Lisbon, Geraldo de la Viña, ‘626’ [i.e 1626].

    Rare first edition of this semi-autobiographical picaresque novel, printed while the author was in exile in Lisbon following the publication of his politically controversial Historia apologética en los sucesos del reyno de Aragon (1622).

    £6750

  19. MÜLLER, Gerhard Friedrich.

    Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the north west coast of America. To...

    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

  20. GUIGNES, Chrétien-Louis-Joseph de.

    Voyages à Peking, Manille et l’Île de France, faits dans l’intervalle des années 1784...

    Paris, l’Imprimerie Impériale, 1808.

    First edition, the complete four-volume set, containing a survey of Chinese history and customs, a narrative of the author’s journey to Beijing as part of the Dutch East India embassy in 1794–5, and a magnificent folio atlas featuring 97 beautiful illustrations and intricate maps.

    £6500