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.-
[MARANA, Giovanni Paolo (attr.).]
Letters on the French Nation, by a Sicilian Gentleman resident in Paris, to his Friend...
London: Printed for T. Lownds ... 1749.
First edition of this translation, very rare, of a work first printed in French in Paris in 1700 (see below) and, in a different translation, in English in 1704 as An agreeable Criticism of the City of Paris.
£1250
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MARKHAM, ‘J.’ [Gervase], G. JEFFERIES, ‘and Experienced INDIANS’, [and C.D. LESHER (editor)].
The Citizen...
Chambersburg, Thomas J. Wright, [c. 1839].
Undated Chambersburg edition. Among the most popular farriery manuals in America, the Experienced Farrier remained in print almost a century after its first appearance, with this Chambersburg edition following those of Wilmington and Baltimore. Intended, like its predecessors, for the common...
£250
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[MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, Duke of.]
Tract volume of five rare works (three not in the British Library) relating to the...
London, 1695–1706.
The Hero of the Age, published December 1704 by the otherwise unknown Jasper Robins, is one of the rarest literary contributions to the national outpouring that accompanied the martial success of John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, in the early years of the eighteenth century. It comprises...
£3850
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MARSDEN, William, translator.
Memoirs of a Malayan family, written by themselves, and translated from the original by W....
London, printed for the Oriental Translation Fund, sold by J. Murray and Parbury, Allen & Co., 1830.
First edition, Sir Thomas Phillipps’s copy, of Marsden’s translation of an account of the travels and trials of a Malayan family trading pepper in Java and Sumatra in the 1750s and 1760s, including their encounters with the Dutch and British East India Companies.
£1250
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MARZAGLIA, Gaetano.
Fascetto di pratiche matematiche spiegate alle persone popolari per uso del comercio umano, e civile, in questa...
Verona, Dionisio Ramanzini, 1780.
A lovely copy of the second edition, considerably augmented from the first of 1754, of this book of applied mathematical problems by the Veronese mathematician Gaetano Marzaglia (or Marcegaglia, 1716–1787), heavily influenced by the work of Wolff, who provides the motto to the book, and whose works...
£650
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McWILLIAM, James Ormiston.
Medical History of the Expedition to the Niger during the Years 1841-2. Comprising an Account of the...
London: C. Adlard for John Churchill, 1843.
First edition. A classic treatise on the Niger region and the yellow fever written by the Scottish doctor James Ormiston McWilliam, the hero of a government expedition exploring the region and its commercial opportunities, and explicitly aimed at suppressing the slave trade. When the yellow fever...
£600
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MEGUSCHER, Francesco.
Memoria … in risposta al quesito additare la migliore e più facile maniera per rimittere i boschi nelle...
Milan, presso l’I.R. Istituto, 1847.
First edition of this comprehensive report on the best means to reverse the deforestation of the mountains of Lombardy, in a way that could be both environmentally sustainable and economically profitable.
£950
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MENDES PINTO, Fernão.
The Voyages and Adventures of Fernand Mendez Pinto, a Portugal: during his travels for the space of one...
London, Printed by J. Macock, for Henry Cripps, and Lodowick Lloyd … 1653.
First edition in English, translated by Henry Cogan, of a travel best-seller, first published posthumously in 1614; there were nineteen editions in six languages by the end of the century, ‘rivalling the popularity of Cervantes’ Don Quixote. It is, in fact, an exotic and imaginative...
£6500
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MERCURIALE, Girolamo.
De arte gymnastica libri sex, in quibus exercitationum omnium vetustarum genera, loca, modi, facultates,...
Venice, [Lucantonio II] Giunta, 1587.
Third edition of ‘the first illustrated book on gymnastics’ (Morton). A physician occupying senior posts in the medical faculties of Padua, Bologna, Rome, and Pisa, Girolamo Mercuriale (1530–1606) draws heavily on accounts of ancient exercise to argue for its medical benefits, being the...
£2750
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M’LEOD, John.
Voyage of His Majesty’s Ship Alceste, along the coast of Corea, to the Island of Lewchew; with an account of...
London, John Murray, 1818.
Second edition (first 1817), with five handsome aquatints, of this account of the voyage of the Alceste to China with Lord Amherst’s embassy, by the ship’s surgeon M’Leod.
£275
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[MONASTICISM].
Risposta ad alcuni aggravi fatti ai monaci nel libro, che ha il titolo di Politica, diritto, e religione.
Milan, Francesco Agnelli, 1742.
Only edition of this anonymous response to Giuseppe Gorini Corio’s controversial Politica, diritto, e religione, that had appeared in Milan at the start of the same year.
£400
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MONETA, José Manuel, and Robert Keith HEADLAND, (ed.).
Four Antarctic Years in the South Orkney Islands: an Annotated...
London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 2017.
One man’s fascinating record of four winters in the Antarctic during the 1920s, the period of transition from the isolation of the Heroic Age to the beginnings of radio communication with the world outside.
£50
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[MONTANUS, Arnoldus.]
Ambassades mémorables de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales des Provinces Unies, vers les empereurs du Japon....
Amsterdam, Jacob van Meurs, 1680.
First edition in French of an important and influential study of Japan by the Dutch theologian and historian Arnoldus Montanus, based on eyewitness accounts from two Dutch East India Company (VOC) missions to Japan in 1649 and 1661.
£3500
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MORELLET, André, Abbé.
Lettres inédites … sur l’histoire politique et littéraire des années 1806 et 1807 …
Paris, Ladvocat [and London, Martin Bossange], 1822.
First edition of a collection of fourteen letters from the Abbé Morellet (1727–1819) to an anonymous correspondent in Italy, published as a supplement to his Mémoires sur le XVIIIe siècle et sur la Révolution (1821).
£200
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MORTON, John.
The natural History of Northampton-Shire, with some Account of the Antiquities, to which is annex’d a Transcript...
London, R. Knaplock and R. Wilkin, 1712.
First edition of Morton’s systematic natural history of Northamptonshire. Compiled over the course of a decade, Morton’s Natural History provides a careful account of the natural history, minerals, fossils, and geography of the county, accompanied by fourteen large copper-engravings....
£775
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MOSZKOWSKI, Alexander [and H.J. STENNING (trans.).]
The Isles of Wisdom.
London, George Routledge & sons, 1924.
First English edition of Alexander Moszkowski’s dystopian satire. Moszkowski imagines a visit to a series of South-East Asian islands which each subscribe unreservedly to a philosophical school of thought. These utopias are absurd: people’s notions of philosophical purity prevent them...
£230
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MÜLLER, Gerhard Friedrich.
Voyages from Asia to America, for completing the discoveries of the north west coast of America. To...
London, T. Jefferys, 1764.
Second edition (first 1761) of this key work devoted to discoveries in northeastern Asia and northwestern America, including the Bering Strait, published by Thomas Jefferys, geographer to George III, ‘remembered in particular for some of the most important eighteenth-century maps of the Americas’...
£6500
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NAVARRETE, Domingo Fernández.
Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China. Descripcion...
Madrid, Juan Garcia Infançon for Florian Anisson, 1676.
Scarce first edition, one of the most important early studies of Chinese history, religion, philosophy, and culture, by the Spanish Dominican Domingo Navarrete (d. 1689).
£3750
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NIEHANS, Jürg.
Der Gedanke der Autarkie im Merkantilismus von einst und im Neomerkantilismus von gestern.
Zürich, H. Girsberger, 1945.
First edition of Niehan’s work on the idea of self-sufficiency in the age of Mercantilism, published as volume 37 of the series Zürcher Volkswirtschaftlicje Forschungen, under the editorship of M. Saitzew. Niehans (1920-2007), a distinguished economist, taught at the Universities of Zurich, Johns...
£40
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NIEL, Adolphe.
Autograph note signed.
[No place], 19 March [1851 or 1852].
A brief note in which the French army general and statesman Adolphe Niel (1802–1869) urges the continued support of an elderly war widow living in the south-west of France.
£150