SMITH, (Robert) Angus.
To Iceland in a yacht ... Not published. Edinburgh, privately printed by Edmonston & Douglas, May 1873.
8vo, pp. vi, [4], 153, [1 (blank)]; with frontispiece, 10 plates, and 2 folding plans; very good in original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, gilt vignette of yacht to upper cover, dark brown endpapers, label ‘Bound by Burn & Co.’ to rear pastedown; a little wear, spine ends, corners and hinges repaired; book label of Thomas Hutchinson of Morpeth.
First edition of this privately printed account by the chemist and environmental scientist Angus Smith (1817-1884) recording his trip to Iceland aboard the ‘Nyanza’ in 1872 in the company of the chemist James ‘Paraffin’ Young (1811-1883) and Agnes Livingstone, daughter of the explorer, among others. ‘We have finished our visit to Iceland in one small month ... To speak for myself, I have never obtained more experience in one month of a character new to me, and I have never received so mjuch health in an equal period of time ... Awe came also upon us in looking on some of the land; it was as if we saw a country scarcely finished ... All men ... may learn lessons from Iceland – a land in which there is no person uneducated, in which every child is taught to read and to write’ (Conclusion). The plates include some handsome photographic views.
Provenance: Thomas Hutchinson (1856-1938), teacher, poet and avid book collector.