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.
  1. [ALEXANDRIA, Battle of, 1801.]

    Plan of the action of the 21st of March fought near Alexandria by the French under Gn. Menou and...

    A detailed plan accurately illustrating the movements of the British and French armies at the battle of Alexandria. In it, Sir Ralph Abercrombie was fatally wounded but the action was considered a British victory as the French were forced out of Egypt soon after. This plan is signed ‘J. W. Hamilton’.

    £650

  2. ANDREADES, Andreas Michael.

    De la monnaie et de la puissance d’achat des métaux précieux dans l’Empire Byzantin . . . Extrait...

    Liège, Imprimerie H. Vaillant-Carmanne, 1924.

    An offprint, with its own title-page and pagination, of this important study. This is a presentation copy, inscribed in ink ‘To Robert Byron. A. A.’ at the head of the front wrapper. Andreades was the first professor of public finance at the University of Athens and the author of a monumental work...

    £45

  3. ANDREWS, Mark E.

    The Science and Engineering of Materials: A Theatre of Machine Books, 1472–1800.

    Toronto, AE Publications, 2023.

    An extraordinary survey of four centuries of machine books, tracing the evolution of printing techniques and draughtsmanship alongside the development of the machines themselves. In this catalogue of eighty-six works from his collection of books on civil engineering, Mark Andrews situates a series...

    £85

  4. [ANGLO-SOVIET DIPLOMACY.] 

    Papers regarding the Anglo-Soviet Negotiations 1939.  Presented by the Secretary of State for Foreign...

    London, His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1939. 

    A proof copy, complete with typed errata attached, of this collection of ninety-five papers relating to the negotiations between the Soviet and British governments between March and December 1939. 

    £750

  5. BENTHAM, Jeremy.

    Plan of Parliamentary Reform, in the Form of a Catechism, with Reasons for each Article. With an Introduction,...

    London: Printed in the Year 1817. Re-printed and Re-published, with Notes and Alterations, by Permission of the Author, by T. J. Wooler … 1818.

    First edition thus of an inexpensive reprint of Bentham’s Plan of Parliamentary Reform (1817), the style adapted by Thomas Wooler, with Bentham’s permission, to ‘render it more easy of comprehension to the popular reader’. In this form it first appeared in instalments in Wooler’s radical...

    £225

  6. BERENGER, Charles Random de.

    Helps and Hints how to protect Life and Property, with Instructions in Rifle and Pistol Shooting, &c.

    London, J. & C. Adlard for T. Hurst ‘for the Proprietor … at the Stadium, Chelsea’, 1835.

    First edition, with advice on riding and driving, illustrated by George and Robert Cruikshank. A marksman and inventor with an ‘inclination to self-publicity and aggrandisement’ (Credland), Charles Random de Berenger (1772–1845) in 1830 established ‘the Stadium’ or ‘British National...

    £180

  7. [MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, Duke of.]

    Tract volume of five rare works (three not in the British Library) relating...

    London, 1695–1706.

    Five works, 4to, bound together in nineteenth-century half calf with marbled sides; first and last pages of all works dusty; inscription of the sixth Duke of Marlborough dated 1847, bookplate with the Marlborough arms.

    £3850

  8. BRITISH MUSEUM.

    List of Missing English Theological and Devotional Books.

    [London, 1940s.]

    Mimeographed typescript of books missing after the losses suffered by the British Museum Library during the Second World War. This is one of several lists of books destroyed, produced both as a record and as a tool for acquiring replacement copies – this copy appears to have been used for that...

    £275

  9. BUONACCORSI, Biagio, and Niccolò VALORI. 

    Diario de’ successi piu importanti seguiti in Italia, & particolarmente in...

    Florence, Filippo & Jacopo Giunta, 1568. 

    First edition of an insider account of Medici politics by Biagio Buonaccorsi (1472–1522), colleague and confidant of Machiavelli, bound with the first edition of Malespini’s history of Florence and owned by Claude-Enoch Virey, secretary to Henri II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé. 

    £1000

  10. [CAESAR.]  RAMUS, Petrus (Pierre de la RAMÉE). 

    Liber de militia C. Julii Caesaris, cum praefatione Joannis Thomae Freigii. 

    Frankfurt, heirs of Andreas Wechel, 1584. 

    An attractively bound copy of Ramus’s uncommon treatise on Caesar’s military tactics, with unusual edge decoration.  The humanist Petrus Ramus (1515–1572) published widely on classical history and grammar while teaching at the Collège de France.  He was briefly forced from his post after...

    £450

  11. CAREY, Henry Charles.

    Principles of social science … In three volumes …

    Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, 1858-1859.

    First edition, a very attractive copy, of Carey’s principal work. ‘His treatment of social science was original, and led him to a series of supposed discoveries, the order of which he has stated in the introduction of his most important work The Principles of Social Science. His point of departure...

    £500

  12. CATANEO, Girolamo. 

    De arte bellica, sive de designandis ac construendis arcibus et propugnaculis, necnon et de iis oppugnandis,...

    Lyons, Jean de Tournes, 1600.

    First Latin edition, scarce on the market, of this handsomely illustrated military classic, first published in Italian at Brescia in 1564.  Edited and published by Jean de Tournes, this edition is dedicated to Henry IV of France.  The military architect Cataneo (active 1540–1584) was considered,...

    £1850

  13. [CAVALRY.]

    Cours d’équitation militaire, a l’usage des corps de troupes a cheval, approuvé par s. exc. le ministre de la guerre.

    Saumur, H. Fournier for A. Degouy and Névo-Degouy, and Paris, Anselin, 1830.

    First edition of an encyclopædic work on horsemanship for the use of the French cavalry, with the suite of plates. ‘L’ouvrage est en effet une veritable encyclopédie hippique : hippologie, extérieur, emploi à la selle, au trait et au bat, alimentation, hygiène, maladies et accidens, haras...

    £225

  14. CHOPPIN, Henri.

    La cavalerie française … illustrée de nombreux dessins et de 16 gravures hors texte en couleurs.

    Paris, Garnier brothers, 1893.

    First edition of a well illustrated history of the French cavalry. A cavalry captain, Henri Choppin (1831–1916) published widely on the French military: the first of several works devoted to the cavalry, La cavalerie française is handsomely illustrated throughout and accompanied by sixteen...

    £175

  15. DITTRICH, Max, and Max HENZE, artist.

    Der Deutsch-Französische Krieg 1870 und 1871. Gedenk-Blätter in Wort und Bild an die Ehrentage...

    Dresden and New York: ‘Druck & Verlag von H.G. Münchmeyer’, 1895.

    Fortieth edition and 25th anniversary ‘Jubel-Ausgabe’. This lavishly-illustrated account of the Franco-Prussian War was published to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of this conflict that was, in retrospect, a harbinger of the political and military turmoil of the following century: ‘the...

    £750

  16. [FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS.]

    Lo Stato Pontificio agli altri incliti co-stati d’Italia.

    [S.l.,] 1797.

    Anonymous anti-French pamphlet, which saw a number of printings in 1796 and 1797, and calls for a general insurrection against the French in Italy. The pamphlet draws very heavily, albeit without any acknowledgment of its debt, on Francesco Gusta’s 1794 Saggio critico sulle cruciate,...

    £450

  17. [GELENIUS, Sigismund (editor).] 

    Notitia utraque, dignitatum, cum orientis, tum occidentis, ultra arcadii honoriique tempora,...

    Lyons, [Jacques du Creux for] Jean de Gabiano, 1608. 

    An expanded edition, illustrated on almost every leaf, of an anonymous fifth-century description of the Roman Empire. 

    £875

  18. GROTIUS, Hugo. 

    De veritate religionis Christianae, editio nova, additis annotationibus in quibus testimonia. 

    [Amsterdam, Jan Jansson?] ‘Juxta exemplar parisiense sumptibus Seb. Cramoisy’, 1640. 

    A pocket-edition of Grotius’s argument for the Christian religion; a very good copy with reading marks by the English pamphleteer Isaac Sharpe. 

    £275

  19. [GROUX, Charles Jacques (engraver).]

    Planches relatives a l’instruction concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres des...

    Paris, Magimel, ‘An X’ [1801].

    Second edition, expanded, of a set of French Revolutionary plates for the instruction of the cavalry. Comprising over one hundred and fifty copper-engraved plates showing cavalry horses, equipment, and manoeuvres, the present work follows a smaller publication by Magimel of the same title, issued...

    £275

  20. HARLINGUE, L. [Albert].

    'Baktiaris Persans'.

    [Iran, c. 1905-1911].

    An impressive press image of the Bakhtiari tribe – revolutionaries in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1911 – here posing in strength with their weapons. Their leader, Sardar As’ad Bakhtiari (1856-1917), was a key figure in the Iranian revolution; under his command (and with German...

    £1500