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. HAKLUYT, Richard.

    The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over Land, to the most...

    Imprinted at London by George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, Deputies to Christopher Barker … 1589.

    First edition, a fine copy, with the world map, in a strictly contemporary London binding, of the first collection of English voyages.

    £350000

  2. [HALE, Thomas, Sir William PETTY, and Samuel PEPYS?].

    An Account of several new Inventions and Improvements now necessary for England,...

    London, Printed for James Atwood, and are to be sold by Ralph Simpson … 1691.

    First edition of Hale’s Account with several rare broadsides on the same topic – the use of milled lead (rather than cast lead, or even wood) for the sheathing of ships as a defence against worm. Thomas Hale operated a lead mill in Deptford (his brother? Charles was a leadworker) and was a...

    £2750

  3. HANWAY, Jonas.

    An historical account of the British trade over the Caspian Sea, with a journal of travels from London through Russia...

    London, Dodsley, Nourse, Millar, Vaillant, & Patterson, Waugh, and Willock, 1753.

    First edition of Hanway’s narrative of his trade mission to Russia, Persia, and the Caspian Sea. Having joined the Russia Company in 1743, Jonas Hanway (1712–1786) sailed for Riga in April that year, before travelling on to St Petersburg, Moscow, and Astrakhan in an attempt to re-establish...

    £1400

  4. HAREL, Charles.

    Ménage sociétaire ou Moyen d’augmenter son bien-être en diminuant sa dépense, avec indication de quelques...

    Paris, Bureau de la Phalange, à la librairie Sociale, 1839.

    1. First edition of this work by the entrepreneur and inventor Charles Harel (1771-1852), a friend and disciple of Charles Fourier’s. This plan describes Harel’s project for the founding of a community of 200 celibates: a utopia of communal life detailing rules (‘love’, ‘the library’etc.)...

    £975

  5. 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

  6. HAWTREY, George Procter.

    Caramella. A story of the lotus eaters up to date.

    Bristol, J. W. Arrowsmith, London, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co., [1899].

    First edition of this utopian novel exploring the bliss of Caramella. Caramella is a land visited by Odysseus who sent crew members ashore, where they consumed the lotus fruit and became addicted, ‘forgetting all thoughts of return’ (Odyssey, book nine). In Hawtrey’s novel, this fruit makes...

    £240

  7. HEBER, Reginald, and Nicolas BARKER (editor).

    A Letter from India.

    The Roxburghe Club, 2020.

    'I do not expect that with fair prospects of eminence at home, you should go to the Ganges for a mitre,’ wrote Sir Charles Watkin Williams Wynn, President of the Board of Commissioners for Indian Affairs, in 1819 to Reginald Heber at Hodnet in Shropshire, but in vain. Despite a growing reputation...

    £100

  8. HELMAN, Isidore-Stanislas-Henri.

    Faits mémorables des empereurs de la Chine, tirés des annales Chinoises, dédiés à Madame,...

    Paris, chez l’auteur … et chez M. Ponce, [1788].

    Two handsome engraved works by the French engraver and printseller Helman (1743–1806/9), here on uncut sheets, the first depicting scenes from Chinese history, the second episodes in the life of Confucius (Kong Fuzi).

    £6000

  9. HERSHBERGER, H.R.

    The Horseman: A Work on Horsemanship, containing plain practical Rules for Riding, and Hints to the Reader on...

    New York, R. Craighead for Henry G. Langley, 1844.

    First edition of a rare military manual on horsemanship, with instructions on riding and illustrated cavalry exercises. An instructor at the United States Military Academy, Hershberger ‘endeavored to convey practical information on all equestrian exercises by an easy and progressive method’.

    £450

  10. [HILLER, Johann Adam, editor].

    Anecdoten zur Lebensgeschichte berühmter französischer, deutscher, italienischer, holländischer...

    Leipzig, Lankisch, 1762.

    Scarce first edition of Hiller’s two-volume collection of literary, philosophical and historical anecdotes. The editor’s note at the end mentions the contemporary publication of a French work of similar inspiration, and states the editor’s intention to translate it and publish it as a sequel to...

    £175

  11. HILL, Rowland.

    Journal of a Tour through the North of England and Parts of Scotland. With Remarks on the present State of the established...

    London: Printed by T. Gillet … and sold at Surr[e]y Chapel; also by T. Chapman [and seven others in London, Edinburgh, and Glasgow]. 1799

    First edition, an account of a Scottish tour conducted in July –September 1798 by the eccentric evangelical preacher Rowland Hill, followed by lengthy remarks on the Scottish church in a letter to the Baptist minister James Haldane. There is another issue with the title Journal through the North...

    £325

  12. H.M.S. COMUS and H.M.S. TOURMALINE. [HELBY, Harold Wildey Hasler.]   

    Log Book.  Hong Kong, Singapore, Palau, Yokohama,...

    Dec 1881–Feb 1884. 

    A characterful log book charting the voyage of Royal Navy steamer H.M.S. Comus, beginning with its berth in Hong Kong and following its course around the Pacific, before its passage home across the Atlantic. It records the technicalities of cruising by steam; the significant international...

    £3000

  13. HOWITT, William.

    The rural and domestic life of Germany: with characteristic sketches of its cities and scenery, collected in a...

    London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1842

    A fine copy of the first edition of Howitt’s account of his travels in Germany and Austria, and one of the best books in English about German life at the time. Howitt had moved with his family to Heidelberg in 1840 and stayed in Germany for more than two years on account of the education of his older...

    £100

  14. HUBER, Victor Aimé (and James Robertson CRAUFURD, translator).

    Stories of Spanish life, from the German of Huber....

    London, Henry Colburn, 1837.

    First edition in English; rare. In his Hand-book, Richard Ford described it as ‘one of the best sketches of this original people and country’. The German original, Skizzen aus Spanien, had appeared in 1828.

    £525

  15. HUMBLOT, F.

    Journal de voyage ...

    France, June-September 1866.

    A handsome manuscript on mining engineering, apparently unpublished, recording visits undertaken by the engineer F. Humblot to coal mines and iron works in eastern and southern France in 1866, containing well over one hundred beautifully executed technical drawings.

    £3500

  16. ‘HURLBUT’ [i.e. HURLBERT], William Henry.

    Pictures of Cuba.

    London: M’Corquodale and Co. for Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1855.

    First British edition, revised and retitled, issued in the ‘Traveller’s Library’ series. Pictures of Cuba was first published under the title Gan-Eden: or, Pictures of Cuba (Boston: 1854), and Hurlbert (1827-1895) states in his preface that, ‘In the short time that has elapsed...

    £150

  17. HURRY, Thomas.

    Tables of interest, from one pound to five hundred millions, for one day; by which the interest for any sum of money...

    [Yarmouth], Printed for the author, and sold by Messrs. Robinson, London; and Downes and March, Yarmouth, 1786.

    One of two editions published in 1786, the other one undated, ESTC does not give any precedence. Tables for calculating interest at a quarter, half, three-quarters, three, four, and five percent; intended as a quick reference for bankers and merchants. Hurry precedes his tables with four pages of example...

    £150

  18. HYGINUS Gromaticus, attrributed, and POLYBIUS.

    De Castris Romanis, quae extant. Cum notis & animadversionibus …

    Amsterdam, Jodocus Pluymer, 1660.

    First edition thus, with annotations by the politician Radboud Herman Scheele (1622–1662).

    £1000

  19. [ISELIN, ISAAK].

    Träume eines Menschenfreundes. Erster Theil.

    Basel, Johannes Schweighauser, 1776.

    First edition, part one only (very rarely to be found complete with both parts), of the most mature expression of Iselin’s anti-Rousseau republicanism, a social ‘dream’ of great articulation and -arguably- applicability, residing confidently on the borderline between utopia and reformism, and the...

    £150

  20. JACOBS, H. W.

    Betterment Briefs. A Collection of Published Papers on Organized Industrial Efficiency.

    New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1909.

    Second, definitive edition. ‘The nucleus of the present volume is a series of four articles published by Mr Jacobs in The Engineering Magazine from September, 1906, to January, 1907, under the title “Organization and Economy in the Railway Machine Shop”. This was followed in June by a paper on...

    £220