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.-
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
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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
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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
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‘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
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[IMAGINARY VOYAGE.]
Admirable Travels of Messieurs Thomas Jenkins and David Lowellin through the unknown Tracts of Africa: with...
London, ‘for the Benefit of Robert Barker, an unfortunate blind man’, 1785.
Rare, a lively chapbook novella of adventures and tribulations in Africa, fusing elements of a Robinsonade with a brief utopia.
£1500
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JACOMB, Charles Ernest.
And a new earth. A romance.
London, George Routledge & Sons, 1926.
First edition. A post-apocalyptic fantasy novel relating the history of a utopian island that survived a ‘second flood’ in 1958, which destroyed the world’s civilization and reduced the human population to just 10,000. The island was re-discovered by the New World Fleet in 2832, 872 years after...
£75
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JEPSON, Edgar.
The Keepers of the People.
London, C. Arthur Pearson Limited, 1898.
First edition of an idiosyncratic fantasy novel which, in unabashed reactionary tones, expresses unease at modernity and particularly at the emancipation of women, to the point of spurning religious morality in order to endorse male-dominated polygamy.
£175
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JESUS, Carlos Augusto Montalto de.
Historic Macao …
Hong Kong, Kelly & Walsh, 1902.
First edition of an important history of Macao by the Macanese scholar Montalto de Jesus (1863–1927), a fellow of the Geographical Society of Lisbon and a member of the China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.
£950
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[JOHNSON, Samuel].
Rasselas.
London: J. Bretell for Hector McLean, 1819.
Third Smirke edition, ordinary-paper issue. ‘All travel has its advantages,’ the lexicographer, essayist and critic Samuel Johnson (1709-84) wrote in his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. ‘If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune...
£300
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KAEMPFER, Engelbert, and Johann Gaspar SCHEUCHZER, translator.
The History of Japan, giving an Account of the ancient...
London, for the translator, 1727.
First edition, first issue, of the German naturalist Engelbert Kaempfer’s monumental History of Japan, translated from an unpublished manuscript in Sir Hans Sloane’s library by his librarian, the Swiss naturalist Johann Caspar Scheuchzer, and illustrated with splendid plates from Kaempfer’s...
£7500
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KEATE, George.
An Account of the Pelew Islands, situated in the western part of the Pacific Ocean: composed from the journals...
Dublin, Luke White, 1788.
First Dublin edition of this popular work, first published in London earlier the same year, by the virtuoso George Keate, member of the Royal Society and Society of Antiquities (1729−1797).
£650
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KERKHERDERE, Jan Gerard.
De situ Paradisi Terrestris ... Praecedit... conatus novus de Cepha reprehenso ex Galatarum secundo capite.
Leuven, Martin van Overbeke, 1729.
First edition. Kerkherdere addresses the question of the location of the Garden of Eden, the earthly Paradise, accompanying his conjecture with a map engraved by P.E. Boultats of Antwerp; the perusal of various sources, geographical studies and toponymic considerations lead the author, an Imperial...
£550
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[KERNER, Johann Georg.]
Reise über den Sund.
Tübingen, in der J.G. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1803.
Rare first edition of this historical, political and economic analysis of Sweden, in epistolary form, complete with a folding table detailing land tax revenues by region.
£250
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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
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LAWRENCE, Thomas Edward.
The Mint. A Day-Book of the R.A.F. Depot between August and December 1922 with Later Notes, by 352087...
London: The Alden Press for Jonathan Cape, 1955.
First British edition, the trade issue. 'One of Lawrence’s avowed purposes in joining the RAF, though not the only one, was to write of the ranks from the inside. He began immediately making notes when he enlisted in 1922. With his dismissal in January 1923, because of unfavourable publicity,...
£120
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LEE, Edwin.
The Principal Baths of Germany [– The Baths of Nassau Baden and the adjacent Districts; – The Baths of central...
London, Whittaker & Cp., Paris, Galignani & Cp., and Frankfurt & Wiesbaden, Charles Jugel 1840 [– 1841].
First edition, scarce, of Edwin Lee’s two-volume survey of palliative bathing spots in Germany, including an appendix on the ‘Cold Water Cure’, a combination of induced sweating and cold-water therapy ‘of late very much in vogue’ (appendix).
£350
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LELAND, John.
The Itinerary of John Leland, in or about the Years 1535-1543. Edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith, with a Foreword by Thomas...
London, Centaur Press Ltd, 1964.
The authoritative edition of Leland’s Itinerary, a monument of English bibliography and antiquarian research. The Itinerary comprises the notes of the antiquary John Leland (c. 1503–1552) on his journeys through England and Wales during the dissolution of the monasteries. According...
£50
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[LE MERCIER DE LA RIVIÈRE, Pierre Paul].
Die glückliche Nation, oder der Staat von Felizien. Ein Muster der vollkommensten Freyheit...
Leipzig, Voss, 1794.
Very rare first German edition of Le Mercier de la Rivière’s physiocratic utopia L’heureuse nation, ou Relation du gouvernement des Féliciens, which had first appeared in French in 1792.
£1250
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LÉVI-STRAUSS, Claude.
The Tupí-Cawahíb.
Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1948.
A set of offprints of four articles by Lévi-Strauss from the Smithsonian’s Handbook of South American Indians, inscribed by the author. In each article Claude Lévy-Strauss (1908–2009) provides an illustrated introduction to an Amazonian group, recording their history, social and political...
£300
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LEWIS, Wyndham.
Filibusters in Barbary (Record of a Visit to the Sous).
London, Grayson & Grayson, [1932].
First edition, scarce in the dust-jacket, ‘an account of his travels which Lewis had written after a holiday with his wife in French Morocco and the Spanish Sahara. The book … emerged as one of the liveliest travel-books of the time. Like all of Lewis’s writing, it was quirky and opinionated,...
£500