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.-
BROOKE, Arthur de Capell, Sir.
Travels through Sweden, Norway, and Finmark, to the North Cape ... Second edition.
London, printed for J. Rodwell, 1831.
Second edition (first 1823) of this account of the Scandinavian travels undertaken by Brooke (1791–1858) in 1820, illustrated with attractive lithographs, several after drawings by the author.
£400
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[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
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BRYDONE, P[atrick].
A Tour through Sicily and Malta. In a series of letters to William Beckford, Esq., of Somerly in Suffolk...
London, W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1775.
Fourth edition of ‘one of the most successful works on Italian travel written in the eighteenth century and … the first important book on Sicily’ (Pine-Coffin).
£250
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BURCKHARDT, Johann Ludwig (John Lewis).
Travels in Arabia, comprehending an account of those territories in Hedjaz which the...
London, Henry Colburn, 1829.
First edition, in one volume, recounting Johann Ludwig Burckhardt’s journey to Mecca on behalf of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior of Africa in 1814.
£3750
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CARDONNEL, Adam de.
Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland [I–II] …
London: Printed for the Author, and sold by Edwards … also by Edwards’s, in Halifax. 1788.
First edition, the very rare issue with the plates in sepia, printed directly onto thick wove paper.
£975
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CARY, John.
‘Cary’s New Pocket Plan of London, Westminster and Southwark; with all the adjacent Buildings in St. George’s...
London, ‘Printed for J. Cary, Engraver, Map & Printseller, No 181, Strand,’ 1 January 1800.
Cary’s folding pocket map of London, from Hyde Park and Chelsea in the West to Bethnal Green and Rotherhithe in the East, showing the development of London’s communications network.
£450
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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
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[CHINA.]
Précis des nouvelles reçues des missions de Chine et des royaumes voisins, en 1819.
[Paris, Adrien Le Clere, 1819?].
An extremely rare summary of the state of French Christian missions in Su-Tchuen (China), Tong-King (Vietnam), Cochinchine (Vietnam), Siam (Thailand), and Pondichery (India) in 1819.
£180
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[CHINA.]
Peking.
Peking, S[anshichiro] Yamamoto, May 1909.
Second enlarged edition, with ten further plates compared to the first (1906). A thorough portrayal of the city, through the eyes of foreigner-photographer Yamamoto. During the Boxer Rebellion he had come to the city from Tokyo to record events, then stayed. This selection includes a good series...
£2800
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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
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COLLIE, John Norman.
Climbing on the Himalaya and other Mountain Ranges.
Edinburgh, T. and A. Constable for David Douglas, 1902.
First edition, published in the year that Collie (1859-1942) became professor of organic chemistry at University College London. ‘Besides his eminence as a scientist, [Collie] acquired great fame as a climber and explorer of mountains. Beginning with the Cuillin peaks in Skye, where he discovered many...
£750
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[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
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[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
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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
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[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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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