Advanced search

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.
Sort by
Author
Price
Date
Title

  1. [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

  2. 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

  3. 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. 

    £3500

  4. PIRANI, Giovanni.

    Le donne belle del secolo XVIII. Inferme nello spedale della voluttà visitate dalla ragione. Opera filosofico-critico-morale...

    Rimini, Paolo Albertini, 1791.

    Scarce first edition of this ‘libro bizarro’ printed in Rimini, in which the personification of Reason takes the narrator on an imaginary journey to a ‘hospital’ in order to heal young women corrupted by the decadence of the eighteenth century.

    £950

  5. PLAYFAIR, George Macdonald Home.

    The Cities and Towns of China. A geographical dictionary …

    Hong Kong, Noronha & Co., 1879.

    First edition of a dictionary of Chinese towns and cities by G.M.H. Playfair (1850–1917), based upon the French Sinologist Édouard Biot’s earlier Dictionnaire of 1842.

    £600

  6. 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

  7. [RAMEAUX, François-Alexis.]

    Edictum pro regis Hou-kuanensis adversus Europaeum Mou (idest adversus RR.DD. Rameaux).

    [China], [1840–1] 道光卄年.

    A letter sent by the Department of Justice to the Hubei provincial government to request an arrest warrant for the French missionary François-Alexis Rameaux (1802–1845). This is most likely a copy, being written on decorated paper as used in private exchanges, especially between lower and higher...

    £3500

  8. [RAMEAUX, François-Alexis.]

    Notice of the death of Rameaux issued by Bernard-Vincent Laribe.

    [China, 1845.]

    A circular notifying the Christian community of the death of François-Alexis Rameaux (1802–1845), Vicar Apostolic of Zhejiang and Jiangxi from 1838, issued by his friend and successor Bernard-Vincent Laribe (1802–1850), asking that prayers for his soul be practiced nightly for six months....

    £2000

  9. 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

  10. RISLEY, Herbert Hope, Sir et al.

    The gazetteer of Sikhim. With an introduction by H. H. Risley ... Edited in the Bengal Government...

    Calcutta, printed at the Bengal Secretariat Press, 1894.

    First edition of this comprehensive survey of Sikkim, in northeast India (bordering Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal and West Bengal), which had become a princely state of British India in 1890. The chapters cover, inter alia, the region’s history, geography, laws, geology, agriculture, vegetation, butterflies,...

    £2500

  11. ROTHERY, Charles William.

    Notes on a yacht voyage to Hardanger Fjord, and the adjacent estuaries. By a yachting dabbler. With numerous...

    London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman; Keswick, James Ivison, [1855].

    First edition, second issue (with the mounted lithographs coloured) of this handsomely illustrated account of Rothery’s yachting cruise to the fjords of Norway, ‘charming and sublime scenery, which the sketches are intended, though slightly, to pourtray’ (Preface).

    £250

  12. 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).

    £1500

  13. 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

  14. [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

  15. SHAGINYAN, Marietta Sergeevna.

    Puteshestvie v Veimar [Journey to Weimar].

    Moscow & Petrograd, Gosizdat, 1923.

    First edition of Shaginyan’s account of a pilgrimage to Weimar, presented by the author ‘to the respected Vladimir Pavlovich Pirogov in dear memory’ (trans.).

    £600

  16. [SHANGHAI.]

    “So–this is Shanghai”.

    [Shanghai, A. S. Watson & Co. and Kelly & Walsh, c. 1935.]

    Rare first edition of a photographic souvenir book of Shanghai. The initial full-page topographical views of the city are followed by a series of smaller format ‘Studies of Chinese Life’, including street scenes and portraits.

    £350

  17. SHAW, Thomas.

    Travels, or observations relating to several parts of Barbary and the Levant, illustrated with cuts, the second edition,...

    London, A. Millar and W. Sandby, 1757.

    ‘Second and most valued edition’ (ODNB) of Shaw’s observations of North Africa and the Near East. Serving as Chaplain to the English factory at Algiers from 1720 to 1733, Thomas Shaw (1694–1751) travelled extensively in Egypt, Palestine, Cyprus, and North Africa, gathering extensive observations...

    £1200

  18. 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

  19. SMITH, Albert Richard.

    The Story of Mont Blanc …

    London, David Bogue, 1853.

    First edition of Smith’s famous book on Mont Blanc, a lovely copy formerly in the possession of his sister, Laura Eady.

    £1275

  20. SMITH, Arthur Henderson.

    Chinese characteristics …

    Shanghai, printed and published at the “North-China Herald” office, 1890.

    First edition of this important and influential work on China by the American missionary Arthur Henderson Smith (1845–1932), for many decades the most widely read American book on the Chinese.

    £550