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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. [BARCLAY MOUNTAIN, PENNSYLVANIA.]

    Archive of over 200 letters, maps, accounts, and reports sent to Robert Barclay and later his...

    Mostly Philadelphia and London, 1794–1854.

    A large and coherent archive relating to a tract of 21,000 acres of coal-rich land in Pennsylvania, later known as Barclay Mountain, from its purchase in 1794 by the London brewer and merchant Robert Barclay (1751–1830) until its sale in 1853 by his son Charles Barclay (1780–1855). It takes in the...

    £32500

  2. BARING-GOULD, Sabine.

    Iceland: its Scenes and Sagas ... With numerous Illustrations and a Map.

    London, Smith, Elder and Co., 1863.

    First edition of this account of a visit to Iceland by the clergyman, collector of folk songs, and hymn writer Sabine Baring-Gould (1834–1924), undertaken for ‘examining scenes famous in Saga, and filling a portfolio with water-colour sketches’ (Preface).

    £350

  3. BARRINGTON, George.

    A Voyage to Botany Bay with a Description of the Country, Manners, Customs, Religion, &c. of the Natives by...

    London, C. Lowndes for H.D. Symonds, [c. 1800-1802, A1 watermarked ‘1800’].

    First and only combined edition, second issue. George Barrington was a ‘genteel young Irishman known for his sartorial elegance, his command of the etiquette of romantic sensibility, and for his prowess at picking pockets’ (Garvey p. 2). The fascinating contrast between Barrington’s charming demeanour...

    £875

  4. [BARSANTI, Pier Vincenzo.]

    Della futura rinnovazione de’ cieli e della terra e de’ suoi abitatori libri tre.

    [Florence,] Stamperia Bonducciana, 1780.

    First edition of this polemical utopia by the Tuscan Dominican Pier Vincenzo Barsanti, which provoked the ire of Jansenists and led to accusations of Molinism and millenarism.

    £675

  5. BAUR, Fidelis. 

    Geschichte der Hohenzollernschen Staaten Hechingen und Sigmaringen von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf unsere Tage,...

    Sigmaringen, Bucher & Liener, 1834-6.

    First edition.  Perched on the Zollenberg, just south of Hechingen, is the castle of Hohenzollern, which gave its name to the ruling house of Brandenburg–Prussia from 1415 to 1918, arguably the most powerful family in German history.  The ancestral lands were divided in 1575 by Count Karl I among...

    £350

  6. BEAUMONT, Joseph.

    Psyche: or Loves Mysterie in XX. Canto’s: displaying the Intercourse betwixt Christ and the Soule …

    London, Printed by John Dawson for George Boddington, 1648.

    First edition of this lengthy religious epic representing the journey of the personified Soul from England to the Holy Land and back, written by Beaumont, one of the Royalist fellows ejected from Cambridge in 1644.

    £1250

  7. [BEIJING.]

    Album of Beijing and environs.

    [1920s.]

    A meticulously presented and captioned series of views, by a tourist or resident in Beijing (then Peking) with a thorough approach to recording their experience of the city and environs.

    £1500

  8. [BEIJING.]

    [Cover title:] ‘The most interesting views of Peiping’.

    [c. 1900–1920.]

    A very good example of a commercial souvenir album of Beijing and the Great Wall of China.

    £1750

  9. [BEIJING.]

    [Cover title:] ‘The most interesting views of Peiping’.

    [C. 1900–1910.]

    A very unusual commercial album of Beijing, with thirty-eight hand-coloured scenes of the city, probably taken using a swing-lens panoramic camera.

    £2000

  10. BELL, John.

    Travels from St Petersburgh in Russia, to various Parts of Asia. Illustrated with Maps …

    Edinburgh, printed for William Creech and sold by Geo. Robinsons and Co., 1788.

    Edinburgh edition (first Glasgow 1763) of this account of the Asian adventures of the Scottish traveller and physician John Bell (1691–1780) undertaken between 1715 and 1738.

    £650

  11. BELL, Walter Dalrymple Maitland.

    The wanderings of an elephant hunter.

    London, The Offices of “Country Life” and George Newnes, and New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1923.

    First edition of Bell’s first work, describing his ‘early elephant hunting days in the Karamojo region’ of Africa, in modern-day Uganda.

    £275

  12. 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

  13. 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 Arena’...

    £180

  14. BERKELEY, Grantley F., and John LEECH and G.H. JALLAND (illustrators).

    Reminiscences of a Huntsman … a new...

    London and New York, R. & R. Clark for Edward Arnold, 1897.

    Second edition, with John Leech’s original four illustrations and a further ten by G.H. Jalland. Hunting anecdotes by the controversial Grantley Firtzhardinge Berkeley (1800–1881), first published two years after his early retirement from politics following defeat at the general election of 1852.

    £120

  15. BLAINE, Delabere Pritchett.

    An Encyclopaedia of rural Sports, or, complete Account, historical, practical, and descriptive, of...

    London, Spottiswoodes and Shaw for Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1852.

    Second edition of Blaine’s comprehensive work on rural sports. First published in 1840, the Encyclopædia of rural Sports marks a considerable departure from Blaine’s earlier scientific texts on veterinary medicine, with sections on the history and philosophy of field sports, and on horse-racing,...

    £275

  16. BLAND-SUTTON, John, Sir.

    Man and Beast in eastern Ethiopia. From Observations made in British East Africa, Uganda, and the Sudan...

    London, Macmillan and Co., 1911.

    First edition, a presentation copy from the author to the Welsh surgeon Sir John Milsom Rees (1866–1952). Bland-Sutton (1855–1936) served as President of both the Royal Society of Medicine and the Royal College of Surgeons.

    £300

  17. BLANFORD, William Thomas.

    Observations on the Geology and Zoology of Abyssinia, made during the Progress of the British Expedition...

    London, Macmillan and Co., 1870.

    First edition of the geologist and naturalist William Thomas Blanford’s study of Abyssinian flora and fauna, undertaken during Britain’s military expedition through the country in 1868 and supplemented by hand-coloured lithographic plates, including those of bird species newly discovered by the author.

    £300

  18. BONNARD, Camille Marie.

    Le pélerin, ou souvenirs de Rome. Tome premier [all published].

    Paris, Camille Bonnard, 1829.

    Rare first and only edition of this handsomely illustrated work on Rome by the French painter and engraver Camille Bonnard (1794–1870), with his autograph presentation note pasted inside.

    £1500

  19. BOSWELL, James.

    The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, LL. D. … Containing some poetical Pieces by Dr....

    London, Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly …, 1785.

    First edition. The text of the Journal was largely completed in 1773 from the diary Boswell kept while travelling in Scotland; publication was, however, delayed until after Johnson’s death. The advertisement for Boswell’s Life of Johnson on the errata leaf announces that the book is...

    £375

  20. [BOUCHET, Jean.]

    Les triu[m]phes de la noble et amoureuse dame, et l’art de honnestement aymer, compose par le Traverseur des...

    Paris, Estienne Caveiller for Pierre Sergent, 6 June 1539.

    Unrecorded issue of Jean Bouchet’s contemplative vernacular work of moral theology in prose and verse explicitly intended for a female readership, following the personified Soul in dialogue with several virtues as she attempts to combat the forces of earthly temptation with the power of divine grace,...

    £4500