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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.
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  1. 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

  2. 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

  3. PARKES, Fanny.

    Wanderings of a pilgrim, in search of the picturesque, during four-and-twenty years in the east; with revelations...

    London, Pelham Richardson, 1850.

    First edition, with many handsome tinted and coloured illustrations, of the lively journals of Fanny Parkes (1794–1875) documenting her time in India from 1822 to 1845, with an interval in England and Cape Town.

    £3750

  4. 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

  5. [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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. 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

  11. [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

  12. [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

  13. 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

  14. 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

  15. ROSS, James Clark. 

    A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, during the Years 1839–43 … ...

    London, John Murray, 1847. 

    First edition, ‘one of the most important works in the history of Antarctic exploration’ (Hill), and ‘a monument to one of mankind’s greatest expeditions of geographical and scientific exploration’ (Rosove). 

    £1750

  16. 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

  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).

    £1500

  18. 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

  19. [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

  20. 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