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. [USTONSON, Onesimus.]

    [SMITH, John?]. The True Art of Angling: being a clear and speedy Way of taking all Sorts of Fresh-water...

    London: Printed for Onesimus Ustonson … 1770.

    The last eighteenth-century edition of an angling classic first published in 1696 and much reprinted and updated by other authorities. Having ‘passed several editions’, the introduction claims, it has been revised to omit ‘superfluous’ oils and ointments, ‘carefully corrected’ throughout,...

    £750

  2. [USTONSON, Onesimus.]

    The Anglers Assistant being an Epitomy of ye whole Art of Angling wherein is shewn at one View ye Harbours,...

    Ustonson [c. 1815?]

    A fine and very rare broadside angling guide, the text probably written by Onesimus Ustonson (b. 1736), fishing tackle manufacturer and inventor of the multiplying reel, who had supplied equipment to Joseph Banks for Cook’s second voyage in 1772.

    £1000

  3. [VALLI, Francesco di Andrea.] 

    Manuscript receipt book. 

    Villa di Vaglie, Cortona, 1735-1767. 

    An interesting manuscript receipt book recording the affairs and transactions of Francesco di Andrea Valli (or Vagli) and his sons Pietro and Egidio, landowners and farmers from Villa di Vaglie near Cortona, over the course of four decades. 

    £375

  4. VERTOT, Abbé de.

    The History of the Revolutions of Portugal. By M. l’Abbe de Vertot, member of the Royal Academy of Inscriptions...

    Glasgow, printed by R. Urie for D. Baxter, 1750.

    Uncommon first Glasgow edition of this English translation of the Histoire des révolutions de Portugal, a classic account of the Portuguese Restoration War against Spain (1640-1668) by the French historian René-Aubert Vertot (1655–1735).

    £150

  5. VICTORIA, Crown Princess of Sweden.

    Vom Nil. Tagebuchblätter während des Aufenthalts in Egypten im Winter 1890/91... Mit Lichtdruckbildern...

    Karlsruhe: G. Braun’sche Hofbuchdruckerei, 1892.

    First edition, printed for private circulation. Vom Nil records a journey along the Nile made between October 1890 and April 1891 by Princess Victoria of Baden (1862–1930), later Queen Victoria of Sweden (queen consort 1907–1930).

    £1800

  6. WALTON, Izaak, and James THORPE, illustrator.

    Complete Angler or contemplative man’s recreation … with illustrations...

    London & Edinburgh, T.N. Foulis, [1925].

    A very attractive illustrated edition of Walton’s classic fishing manual in a deluxe Bayntun binding.

    £500

  7. [WARD, Edward, and VOLTAIRE.] 

    The Humourous and Diverting Story of Two Sailors, Who, in order to recruit their Stock of...

    6, Punderson’s-Place, Bethnal-Green-Road’, [c. 1800?]. 

    Seemingly unrecorded edition of this humorous chapbook tale of two penniless sailors who turn to piracy in an attempt to pay their rent, printed with a translation of Voltaire’s Memnon and the anonymous poem ‘Clara’. 

    £450

  8. WYLD, James.

    The islands of Japan by James Wyld, geographer to the Queen & H.R.H. the Prince Consort.

    London, James Wyld, 1 January 1859.

    Rare folding map of Japan by James Wyld the younger (1812–1887) published just a few years after the end of its long isolationist era, showing treaty ports opening soon following the signing of the 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States.

    £1500

  9. WYLD, James.

    Map of the islands of Japan, Kurile &c. and part of the Chinese dominions and a sketch of the river Amoor and the...

    London, James Wyld, 1859–1860.

    Rare four-sheet map of Japan, the Russian Far East, Mongolia and Southern Siberia, Korea, and China’s central coast, by James Wyld the younger (1812–1887), published just a few years after the end of Japan’s long isolationist period.

    £2750

  10. XENOPHON.

    De Cyri regis Persarum vita atque disciplina, libri VIII.

    Paris, Andreas Wechel, 1572.

    First edition of Joachim Camerarius’ Latin translation of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, a partly fictional work on the life and education of Cyrus the Great which served as a model for medieval and renaissance mirrors of princes, including Machiavelli’s Il Principe. A beautiful...

    £875