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.
  1. [COLUMBUS.] QUARITCH, Bernard, and Michael KERNEY.

    The Spanish Letter of Columbus … A facsimile of the original edition...

    [London,] Quaritch, 2006.

    Over the centuries, booksellers have contributed much to the elucidation and sometimes to the falsification of historical documents. The story of the first printed account of the New World, usually known as Christopher Columbus’s Letter to Santángel or simply the Columbus Letter, illustrates...

    £60

  2. [COOK, James, and Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de la PÉROUSE.]

    Tableau des decouvertes du Capne. Cook, & de la Pérouse....

    S. Sauveur, l’an 7 de la République Française [1798-1799].

    A splendid hand-coloured engraving depicting indigenous peoples of the Pacific and beyond, drawn from the voyages of James Cook (1728–1779) and La Pérouse (1741–1788), and published by the Canadian-born writer, artist and diplomat, Jacques Grasset de Saint-Saveur (1757–1810).

    £1500

  3. COPPERTHWAITE, R.H.

    The Turf and the Racehorse, describing Trainers and Training, the Stud-Farm, the Sires and Brood-Mares of the...

    London, Day & Son, 1865.

    First edition of a scarce account of mid-nineteenth-century race horses, including notes and anecdotes on breeding, buying, training, and racing, and with an extensive table of ‘the tried brood mares of the day’, showing their pedigrees and progeny.

    £160

  4. DAMPIER, William, et al.

    A Collection of Voyages. In four volumes. Containing I. Captain William Dampier’s voyages round...

    London, for James and John Knapton, 1729.

    The first collected edition, ‘considered by many to be the best’ (Hill), illustrated with seventeen maps and forty-six plates.

    £9500

  5. [DARIEN EXPEDITION].

    A perfect list of the several persons residenters in Scotland, who have subscribed as adventurers in the joynt-stock...

    Glasgow, reprinted by Hutchinson & Brookman, 1827.

    First edition of this reprint of the list, first published in Edinburgh in 1696, of subscribers to William Paterson’s Company of Scotland. Paterson (1658-1719) sat on the first board of the Bank of England, but left following a disagreement with the other board members. Following this he devoted...

    £50

  6. DAVID, [Pierre Drapeyron de].

    A History of the Campaigns of General Pichegru, containing the Operations of the Armies of the North,...

    London, for G.G.J. & J. Robinson, 1796.

    First edition in English, printed in the same year as the French original, of this account of General Pichegru’s campaigns during the early French Revolutionary Wars.

    £185

  7. [DELAMARCHE, Alexandre, cartographer; Bernard COUDERT, lithographer.]

    ‘Atlas’.

    Paris, Legay, [c. 1889].

    An attractive set of large educational jigsaw maps showing the world, Europe, and France, preserved in its original allegorical box.

    £875

  8. DENNYS, Nicholas Belfield, editor.

    The Treaty Ports of China and Japan. A complete guide to the open ports of those countries,...

    Shortrede and Co., 1867.

    First edition, complete with all twenty-nine maps and plans, of this remarkable guide to the open ports of China and Japan in the late 1860s, aimed at ‘travellers, merchants, and residents’, compiled by Nicholas Dennys (1839–1900), a noted scholar of Chinese folklore, with the sinologist...

    £4750

  9. DEUBER, A. X.

    Poetische Versuche.

    Bamberg, [cover: ‘im Komptoir der Zeitung’,] 1804.

    First and only edition, very rare, preserving the original binding of printed and gilt pink silk.

    £650

  10. DEVILLE, Albéric.

    Voyage aux grottes d’Arcy, suivi de poésies fugitives et de pensées détachées. Par A. Deville, professeur...

    Paris, Munier for Gérard, an XI (1802-3).

    Scarce first edition, presented by the author, of this curious work comprising a description of the famous caves at Arcy-sur-Cure in France, alongside various poetical fancies, by the natural history professor and versifier Albéric Deville (1774–1832).

    £250

  11. DIKREITER, Otto, and Renée SINTENIS (illustrator).

    Du und Dein Pferd: Ein anmutiges, belehrendes, und ergötzliches...

    Berlin, Königsberg, & Leipzig, Kanter Verlag, [c. 1938].

    First edition (seventh to tenth thousand) of a charmingly illustrated work. The collection of short pieces of poetry and prose relating to horses, gathered from sources ranging from Shakespeare and Goethe to Xenophon and the Koran, is illustrated by the German artist Renée Sintenis (1888–1965),...

    £80

  12. DIONYSIUS [Periegetes].

    Διονυσιου οικουμενης περιηγησις μετα των Ευσταθιου ‘υπομνηματων...

    London, M. Clark for R. Littlebury, R. Scott, T. Sawbridge & G. Wells, 1688.

    An attractive illustrated edition of Dionysius’s verse geography. Dionysius Periegetes, likely of Alexandria, is thought to have written his description of the world during the reign of Hadrian in the early second century. It was widely read both in the ancient world and subsequently, and is...

    £500

  13. 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

  14. DU HALDE, Jean-Baptiste.

    A Description of the Empire of China and Chinese-Tartary, together with the Kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet,...

    London, T. Gardner for Edward Cave, 1738 [– 1741].

    The first complete English translation of Jean-Baptiste Du Halde’s Description géographique … de l’Empire de la Chine (1735), the ‘Bible of European sinophilia’ (Löwendahl). Based on the reports of major Jesuit missionaries, and shaped by the earlier Historia of Martini and Mémoires of Le...

    £15000

  15. DUPUIS, Joseph. 

    Journal of a Residence in Ashantee ... Comprising notes and researches relative to the Gold Coast, and the interior...

    London, for Henry Colburn, 1824. 

    First edition of this illustrated account of the Gold Coast by Joseph Dupuis (1789–1874), British consul at Mogador, from the library of Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby (1799–1869), later three times Prime Minister. 

    £1250

  16. ENDERS, Elizabeth Crump.

    Swinging Lanterns.

    New York and London, D. Appleton and Co., 1923.

    First edition of this celebrated Chinese travel memoir by Elizabeth Crump Enders, a vivid depiction of China in the 1920s formerly in the possession of Josephine del Drago, American heiress and Chinese art collector.

    £100

  17. ESTIENNE, Charles.

    De re vestiaria libellus, ex Bayfio excerptus: addita vulgaris linguae interpretatione, in adulesce[n]tuloru[m]...

    Paris, Robert Estienne, 1536.

    A wonderful sammelband of four children’s books compiled and published by the Estiennes, covering Roman dress and vases as well as plants and trees, bound with Antonio Telesio’s celebrated treatise on colours.

    £2250

  18. [FASCISM.]

    Ordinamento Corporativo dello Stato Fascista.

    Padua, Edizione di propaganda corporative, 1935.

    Italian Fascism primarily followed the economic model of corporatism to organise capital and labour interest groups into trade unions and employer associations such as agriculture, industry, commercial trade, professionals and artists, as well as banks and credit associations. These trade associations...

    £2500

  19. FENNING, Daniel.

    The Ready Reckoner; or Trader’s most useful Assistant, in buying and selling all sorts of Commodities either...

    London, printed for S. Crowder … and B.C. Collins … in Salisbury, 1785.

    First edition thus, edited by the mathematician and almanack-maker Joseph Moon of Salisbury.

    £250

  20. FINÉ, Oronce. 

    Opere di Orontio Fineo … divise in cinque parti, arimetica, geometria, cosmografia, e orivoli, tradotte da...

    Venice, Francesco Franceschi, 1587. 

    First Italian edition of the works of Finé.  Among the most influential scientific scholars of the sixteenth century, over three decades at the Collège Royale Oronce Finé (1494–1555) made considerable contributions to various branches of mathematics, from geometry and arithmetic to astronomy...

    £2750