Travel
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.-
BOYD, Hugh Macauley.
The Indian observer. By the late Hugh Boyd, Esq. and others. Compiled by Mr. Bone.
Calcutta, Joseph Cooper, 1795.
Scarce first edition thus of this collection of letters by the Irish writer Hugh Boyd (1746-1794), compiled by Andrew Burchet Bone, and with a life of Boyd by Lawrence Dundas Campbell.
£2750
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BREREWOOD, Edward.
Enquiries touching the Diversity of Languages, and Religions through the cheife Parts of the World …
London, Printed [by Eliot’s Court Press] for John Bill, 1614.
First edition. Brerewood, professor of astronomy at Gresham College, was a scholar in many fields who published nothing in his own lifetime (he died in 1613). Enquiries, seen through the press by a nephew, explores the spread of ancient, eastern, and modern languages, discusses the...
£3000
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BROOKE, Arthur de Capell, Sir.
Travels through Sweden, Norway, and Finmark, to the North Cape ... Second edition.
London, printed for J. Rodwell, 1831.
Second edition (first 1823) of this account of the Scandinavian travels undertaken by Brooke (1791–1858) in 1820, illustrated with attractive lithographs, several after drawings by the author.
£400
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[BRUNEL, Antoine de.]
A journey into Spain.
London, printed for Henry Herringman, 1670.
First edition in English. A free and abridged translation of Voyage d’Espagne curieux, historique et politique, first published anonymously in 1665. Setting out from the Netherlands in 1651 in the company of François van Aerssen, Brunel toured France, Germany and Italy before travelling to...
£950
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BRYDONE, P[atrick].
A Tour through Sicily and Malta. In a series of letters to William Beckford, Esq., of Somerly in Suffolk...
London, W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1775.
Fourth edition of ‘one of the most successful works on Italian travel written in the eighteenth century and … the first important book on Sicily’ (Pine-Coffin).
£250
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BURCKHARDT, Johann Ludwig (John Lewis).
Travels in Arabia, comprehending an account of those territories in Hedjaz which the Mohammedans...
London, Henry Colburn, 1829.
First edition, in one volume, recounting Johann Ludwig Burckhardt’s journey to Mecca on behalf of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior of Africa in 1814.
£3750
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BURTON, Richard Francis, and James MACQUEEN.
The Nile Basin. Part I. Showing Tanganyika to be Ptolemy’s western lake reservoir....
By James M’Queen … London, Tinsley Brothers, 1864.
First edition, complete with the three maps. This work, ‘which absolutely exudes venom, was the heart of Burton’s frontal attack on [John Hanning] Speke’s geographical theories. Burton dedicated it, with a marked degree of sarcasm, to “those kind friends, especially to those members of...
£2500
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CARDONNEL, Adam de.
Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland [I–II] …
London: Printed for the Author, and sold by Edwards … also by Edwards’s, in Halifax. 1788.
First edition, the very rare issue with the plates in sepia, printed directly onto thick wove paper.
£975
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CARY, John.
‘Cary’s New Pocket Plan of London, Westminster and Southwark; with all the adjacent Buildings in St. George’s...
London, ‘Printed for J. Cary, Engraver, Map & Printseller, No 181, Strand,’ 1 January 1800.
Cary’s folding pocket map of London, from Hyde Park and Chelsea in the West to Bethnal Green and Rotherhithe in the East, showing the development of London’s communications network.
£450
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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
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[CHINA.]
Précis des nouvelles reçues des missions de Chine et des royaumes voisins, en 1819.
[Paris, Adrien Le Clere, 1819?].
An extremely rare summary of the state of French Christian missions in Su-Tchuen (China), Tong-King (Vietnam), Cochinchine (Vietnam), Siam (Thailand), and Pondichery (India) in 1819.
£180
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[CHINA.]
Peking.
Peking, S[anshichiro] Yamamoto, May 1909.
Second enlarged edition, with ten further plates compared to the first (1906). A thorough portrayal of the city, through the eyes of foreigner-photographer Yamamoto. During the Boxer Rebellion he had come to the city from Tokyo to record events, then stayed. This selection includes a good series...
£2800
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[CHOISY, François Timoléon, Abbé de.]
Journal ou suite de voyage de Siam. En forme des lettres familieres fait en M.DC.LXXXV...
Amsterdam, Pierre Mortier, 1687.
Amsterdam edition, issued the same year as the first Paris edition, recounting a voyage to Siam by the prolific French writer, former cross-dresser, and Jesuit priest, the Abbé de Choisy.
£300
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CLÜVER, Philipp.
Introductio in universam geographiam tam veterem, quam novam …
Wolfenbüttel, Caspar Johann Bismarck for Conrad Buno, 1686.
The 1686 edition of perhaps the most important geographical textbook of the early modern period, an introduction to global geography by the German antiquarian and geographical pioneer Philipp Clüver, enlarged and supplemented by the German geographer Johann Buno.
£2500
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COLLIE, John Norman.
Climbing on the Himalaya and other Mountain Ranges.
Edinburgh, T. and A. Constable for David Douglas, 1902.
First edition, published in the year that Collie (1859-1942) became professor of organic chemistry at University College London. ‘Besides his eminence as a scientist, [Collie] acquired great fame as a climber and explorer of mountains. Beginning with the Cuillin peaks in Skye, where he discovered many...
£750
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[COLUMBUS.] QUARITCH, Bernard, and Michael KERNEY.
The Spanish Letter of Columbus … A facsimile of the original edition...
[London,] Quaritch, 2006.
Over the centuries, booksellers have contributed much to the elucidation and sometimes to the falsification of historical documents. The story of the first printed account of the New World, usually known as Christopher Columbus’s Letter to Santángel or simply the Columbus Letter, illustrates...
£60
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[COOK, James, and Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de la PÉROUSE.]
Tableau des decouvertes du Capne. Cook, & de la Pérouse....
S. Sauveur, l’an 7 de la République Française [1798-1799].
A splendid hand-coloured engraving depicting indigenous peoples of the Pacific and beyond, drawn from the voyages of James Cook (1728–1779) and La Pérouse (1741–1788), and published by the Canadian-born writer, artist and diplomat, Jacques Grasset de Saint-Saveur (1757–1810).
£1500
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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
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[DELAMARCHE, Alexandre, cartographer; Bernard COUDERT, lithographer.]
‘Atlas’.
Paris, Legay, [c. 1889].
An attractive set of large educational jigsaw maps showing the world, Europe, and France, preserved in its original allegorical box.
£875
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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...
£4750