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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.
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  1. 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, with a contemporary bookplate bearing the names of the prominent Devon merchant and ship-owner Arthur Holdsworth and his wife.

    £1400

  2. HARDY, Campbell.

    Sporting Adventures in the New World; or, Days and Nights of Moose-Hunting in the Pine Forests of Acadia …

    London, Hurst and Blackett, 1855.

    First edition of this most interesting account of Nova Scotia, Canada, by the Royal Artillery officer Campbell Hardy (1831–1919).

    £575

  3. 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.

    First edition of this work by the entrepreneur and inventor Charles Harel (1771–1852), a friend and disciple of Charles Fourier’s, describing Harel’s project for the founding of an utopian community of two hundred people housed in a single building, bound with eight other works in a sammelband...

    £975

  4. 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, inspired by the land visited by Odysseus in book nine of the Odyssey, where the crew members he sent ashore consumed the lotus fruit and became addicted, forgetting all thoughts of return.

    £250

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. [HIGHLANDS.]

    Fifth Report of the Commissioners for Roads and Bridges in the Highlands of Scotland.

    [London, Hansard, 1811.]

    A rare Parliamentary report on the construction of roads and bridges in Scotland, with a fine map by Aaron Arrowsmith showing the roads already constructed or under contract (in red) and the roads under consideration (in green).

    £300

  8. 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

  9. HODSON, Thomas.

    The Accomplished Tutor; or, complete System of liberal Education … Embellished with twenty Copper-plates and...

    London, H. D. Symonds, and Vernor and Hood, 1802.

    Second edition, revised, of a voluminous catch-all schoolbook (first published 1800), by Thomas Hodson, of the Middle Temple.

    £300

  10. HOGG, James.

    The Pilgrims of the Sun; a Poem …

    London, John Murray, and Edinburgh, William Blackwood, 1815.

    First edition, first issue, of a long poem by the Scottish shepherd and poet James Hogg, dedicated to Byron and detailing the journey of a local young woman, Mary Lee, to a heavenly world and back to earth, escorted by the spirit Cela.

    £200

  11. 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

  12. HUBER, Victor Aimé; James Robertson CRAUFURD, translator.

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

    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

  13. ‘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

  14. [‘HYSON, Timothy’, pseud. Thomas LOWNDES].

    A Letter to Mr. Richard Twining, Tea Dealer, and One of the Candidates for...

    London, [C. Roworth] for the author, 1827.

    Second edition of the Letter to Mr Richard Twining, a public denunciation of the candidacy of the tea merchant Richard Twining (1749-1824) for a directorship of the East India Company in 1810. Twining, who had already been instrumental in the development of tea prices and taxation for many...

    £250

  15. IDES, E[vert] Ysbrants.

    Three Years Travels from Moscow over-land to China: thro’ Great Ustiga, Siriania, Permia, Sibiria, Daour,...

    London, W. Freeman, J. Walthoe, T. Newborough, J. Nicholson, and R. Parker, 1706.

    First edition in English of this important account of an early embassy to China, our copy from the library of Sir Erasmus Gower, commander of the Macartney Embassy, Britain’s first and pivotal delegation to the Qing Empire.

    £2750

  16. [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

  17. [IRWIN, Eyles.]

    Eastern Eclogues; written during a Tour through Arabia, Egypt, and other Parts of Asia and Africa, in the Year...

    London, for J. Dodsley, 1780.

    First edition of these travel-inspired poems by the Calcutta-born East India Company servant Eyles Irwin (1751–1817), composed during his journey from India to England in 1777, and containing several interesting references to the British presence in India.

    £850

  18. JACOMB, Charles Ernest.

    And a New Earth. A Romance.

    London, George Routledge & Sons, 1926.

    First edition of this 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 ten thousand.

    £75

  19. [JESUITS.]

    The Travels of several learned Missioners of the Society of Jesus, into divers Parts of the Archipelago, India, China,...

    London, for R. Gosling, 1714.

    First English translation of twenty-two letters by major French Jesuit missionaries in Asia and the Americas, taken from Charles Le Gobien’s Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (1711–13). The Jesuits largely dominated seventeenth and early eighteenth-century missionary activity in the...

    £1250

  20. 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