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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. [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

  2. [SEVILLE.]

    Mercantile contract between Sebastián de Baeza of Seville and Hernán López de Segovia, almost certainly relating...

    Seville, 25 July 1576.

    A commercial document from the heyday of Seville’s trade with the Indies. Drawn up for Sebastián de Baeza, a resident of the barrio of San Bartolomé in Seville, the document recapitulates a previous agreement of 25 June 1576 between, on the one hand, Hernán López de Segovia and, on...

    £1200

  3. 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

  4. GONZÁLES DE MENDOZA, Juan, and Robert PARKE, translator. 

    The Historie of the great and mightie Kingdome of China,...

    London, Printed by J. Wolfe for Edward White, 1588 [or 1589]. 

    First edition in English, rare, of the first significant European study of China, ‘one of the outstanding “best-sellers” of the sixteenth century’ (Boxer). 

    £50000

  5. 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

  6. HAKLUYT, Richard.

    The principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea or over-land,...

    London, George Bishop, Ralph Newberie, and Robert Barker, 1598 [– 1600].

    Second edition, first issue of ‘Hakluyt’s monumental masterpiece, and the great prose epic of the Elizabethan period’ (Penrose), complete with the section on the conquest of Cadiz by Essex (vol. I, pp. 607-619) ordered suppressed by Elizabeth I in 1599 (in ESTC state 1a).

    £20000

  7. ABBEVILLE, Claude d’.

    Histoire de la mission des peres Capucins en l’isle de Maragnan et terres circonvoisines ou est traicte...

    Paris, François Huby, 1614.

    Second edition, enlarged and revised from the first edition published earlier the same year, a handsome copy, of the first written account of the Capuchin mission to Maranhão, an island on the coast of Brazil, of which, Sabin notes, this is the earliest mention. In 1612 the mission, composed...

    £30000

  8. SPILBERGEN, Joris van, and Jacob LE MAIRE.

    Speculum orientalis occidentalisque Indiae navigationum; quarum una Georgii a...

    Leiden, Nicolaes van Geelkercken, 1619.

    First Latin edition of one of the classic Dutch illustrated voyages, identical in format and illustration to the same publisher’s Dutch-language edition of the same year. ‘All first editions in oblong format are rare and much sought after’ (Borba de Moraes, p. 828). The maps include the...

    £20000

  9. CÉSPEDES Y MENESES, Gonzalo de.

    Varia fortuna del soldado Pindaro.

    Lisbon, Geraldo de la Viña, ‘626’ [i.e 1626].

    Rare first edition of this semi-autobiographical picaresque novel, printed while the author was in exile in Lisbon following the publication of his politically controversial Historia apologética en los sucesos del reyno de Aragon (1622).

    £6750

  10. LAET, Joannes de, editor.

    De imperio Magni Mogolis sive India vera commentarius e variis auctoribus congestus …

    Leiden, ‘ex officina Elzeviriana’, 1631.

    Pocket-sized Elzevir edition (one of two issued in the same year) of this work on India and the Mughal Empire compiled by the Dutch geographer Joannes de Laet (1581–1649), this copy, exceptionally, in its original drab boards.

    £950

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. [TANGIER.] 

    A Description of Tangier, the Country and People adjoyning.  With an account of the person and government of Gayland,...

    London, for Samuel Speed, 1664. 

    Scarce first edition of this entertaining account of Tangier, in north-western Morocco, during the English occupation of the city, which had begun in 1661 following Charles II’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza, and which would come to an end in 1684. 

    £2750

  14. NIEUHOF, Jean, and Jean LE CARPENTIER (translator). 

    L’ambassade de la compagnie orientale des provinces unies...

    Leiden, Jacob de Meurs, 1665. 

    Lavishly illustrated first French edition of Nieuhof’s travels through China from 1655 to 1657. 

    £3500

  15. NIEUHOF, Jan, and Georg HORN (translator). 

    Legatio Batavica ad magnum Tartariae chamum Sungteium, modernum Sinae...

    Amsterdam, Jacob van Meurs, 1668. 

    First edition in Latin, beautifully illustrated, of Nieuhof’s account of his travels in China between 1655 and 1657, one of the most important early modern non-Jesuit studies. 

    £5000

  16. [BRUNEL, Antoine de.]

    A journey into Spain.

    London, printed for Henry Herringman, 1670.

    First edition in English. A free and abridged translation of Voyage d’Espagne curieux, historique et politique, first published anonymously in 1665. Setting out from the Netherlands in 1651 in the company of François van Aerssen, Brunel toured France, Germany and Italy before travelling to...

    £950

  17. PALAFOX Y MENDOZA, Juan de. 

    The History of the Conquest of China by the Tartars. Together with an Account of several remarkable...

    London, W. Godbid for M. Pitt, 1671. 

    First edition in English of Palafox's Historia de la conquista de la China (1670), an account of the Manchu conquest of Ming China based on reports sent to him from Macao and the Philippines.

    £1750

  18. 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

  19. [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

  20. CLÜVER, Philipp.

    Introductio in universam geographiam tam veterem, quam novam …

    Wolfenbüttel, Caspar Johann Bismarck for Conrad Buno, 1686.

    The 1686 edition of perhaps the most important geographical textbook of the early modern period, an introduction to global geography by the German antiquarian and geographical pioneer Philipp Clüver, enlarged and supplemented by the German geographer Johann Buno.

    £2500