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  1. GRAY, William.

    Travels in Western Africa, in the years 1818, 19, 20, and 21, from the River Gambia, through Woolli, Bondoo, Galam,...

    London, John Murray, 1825.

    First edition, with fine aquatint plates. The Colonial Office’s Niger expedition, commanded by Major John Peddie, reached the River Senegal in November 1815; Peddie immediately fell victim to fever, leaving Staff Surgeon Dochard and Captain Gray to take over the mission. They set out with 100 men and...

    £600

  2. LEGH, Thomas.

    Narrative of a journey in Egypt and the country beyond the cataracts ... Second edition.

    London, John Murray, 1817.

    Second edition, illustrated with ten handsome plates absent from the first edition of 1816. ‘Legh travelled up the Nile in the winter of 1812/13 with the Rev. Charles Smelt, whose journal he uses in the narrative. They explored the country above Aswan, penetrating into Nubia, whose temples they were...

    £500

  3. LEONARD, Peter.

    Records of a voyage to the western coast of Africa, in His Majesty’s ship Dryad and of the service on that station...

    Edinburgh, Andrew Shortrede for William Tate, 1833.

    First edition of this account by the naval surgeon Peter Leonard (1801-1888), a presentation copy from the author. ‘The principal objects in publishing the following records are, to make known the horrors which attend the slave trade on the western coast of Africa, and the condition and mental capacity...

    £550

  4. METHUEN, Henry Hoare.

    Life in the wilderness; or wanderings in South Africa ...

    London, Richard Bentley, 1846.

    First edition. ‘A journal of an eight months’ sporting expedition through the Eastern Province to the Orange and Vaal Rivers, Waterboer’s country (Griqualand West), and thence in a north-easterly direction to the junction of the Mariqua and Limpopo Rivers as far as Moselekatse’s old capital,...

    £275

  5. PARK, Mungo.

    Travels in the interior districts of Africa: performed under the direction and patronage of the African Association,...

    London, printed by W. Bulmer and Co. and sold by G. and W. Nicol, 1800.

    Fourth edition of Park’s account of his momentous expedition to the Niger River on behalf of the African Association. ‘His Travels, published in 1799, was a best-seller. Three editions were printed during the first year, and it was immediately translated into French and German, and eventually other...

    £250

  6. PEEL, Charles Victor Alexander.

    Somaliland. Being an account of two expeditions into the far interior. Together with a complete...

    London, F.E. Robinson & Co., 1900.

    First edition, presentation copy from the author. ‘An excellent sporting title, this features all manner of big game hunting in the regions southwest of Hargeisa on Peel’s first expedition, then through the Haud and Ogaden on his second’ (Czech).

    £350

  7. RENNELL, James.

    The geographical system of Herodotus, examined, and explained, by a comparison with those of other ancient authors,...

    London, W. Bulmer and Co. for G. and W. Nicol, 1800.

    First edition of this work on ancient geography by the eminent cartographer James Rennell (1742-1830), ‘a monument of laborious research and acute and lucid criticism’ (DNB). Best known for his pioneering mapping of India and Africa, Rennell was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1781, receiving...

    £975

  8. RENSHAW, Richard.

    Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, the Indian Ocean, and up the Red Sea, with travels into Egypt, through the desert,...

    Manchester, M. Wilson, 1821.

    First published in 1804. ‘This new edition will be found to contain not only most of the matter published in the first and second edition, but from eighty to one hundred pages of additional information, both historical and sentimental. The new historical matter is principally selected from the travels...

    £250

  9. SPEKE, John Hanning.

    What led to the discovery of the source of the Nile ...

    Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood and Sons, 1864.

    First edition of this work on Speke’s momentous explorations of Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria, collecting his ‘Journal of adventures in Somali land’ and ‘Journal of a cruise on the Tanganyika lake’.

    £1750

  10. SPRY, William James Joseph.

    The cruise of her majesty’s ship “Challenger”. Voyages over many seas, scenes in many lands ......

    London, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876.

    First edition. A private account, by a lieutenant on board, of the Challenger expedition (1872-76), one of the most ambitious scientific voyages of the 19th century and often considered to mark the birth of oceanography. Among the places visited and described here are the various Atlantic islands, the...

    £250

  11. THOMSON, Joseph.

    Travels in the Atlas and southern Morocco. A narrative of exploration.

    London, George Philip & Son, 1889.

    First edition. Thomson had previously undertaken several African expeditions and in 1885 had been awarded the founder’s gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society. ‘On 17 March 1888 Thomson set foot again on his chosen continent. On this occasion he elected to explore, on his own account, the Atlas...

    £250

  12. NORMAND, Alfred Nicolas.

    L’architecture des nations étrangères. Etude sur les principales constructions du parc à l’Exposition...

    Paris, A. Morel, 1870.

    First edition. This is a presentation copy, inscribed on the half-title to the author’s friend Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris opera house that bears his name: ‘A son ami Ch. Garnier. Souvenir affectueux A. Normand’. The two men had known each other since they were both ‘pensionnaires’...

    £4000

  13. BLANCHARD, Edward Litt Leman.

    A Pipe of Tobacco: with Whiffs and Clouds … With Illustrations.

    London: H. Beal … [1840s?].

    First edition, by the editor and play- and pantomime-writer E.L. Blanchard, comprising three ‘whiffs’ and two ‘clouds’ on the subject of tobacco, aimed ‘at a niche in the waistcoast pocket, rather than a more presuming station on the library shelf’. Blanchard knew Dickens and was in...

    £125

  14. [FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS.]

    Lo Stato Pontificio agli altri incliti co-stati d’Italia.

    [S.l.,] 1797.

    Anonymous anti-French pamphlet, which saw a number of printings in 1796 and 1797, and calls for a general insurrection against the French in Italy. The pamphlet draws very heavily, albeit without any acknowledgment of its debt, on Francesco Gusta’s 1794 Saggio critico sulle cruciate,...

    £450

  15. [WEDDING POETRY.]

    Applausi alli felicissimi sponsali dell’illustrissimo Sig. Cavaliere Deifebo Perini Brancadori, con l’illustrissima...

    Siena, Stamperia del Pubblico, 1699.

    Seemingly unrecorded collection of sonnets written to mark the marriage of two Sienese nobles, Deifebo Perini Brancadori and Ottavia Orlandini. The fourteen sonnets, whose authorship remains unknown, take inspiration from the family name of the groom and aspects of the arms of both families, with...

    £350

  16. MANDELSTAM, Osip Emilyevich.

    О Поэзии: СборникСтатей [O poezii: Sbornik statei; ‘On poetry: A collection...

    Leningrad, Academia, 1928.

    First edition of this collection of essays on poetry and the arts, by the prominent Acmeist poet Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938). ‘[Mandelstam] regarded the period during which he wrote these articles (1922-26) as the worst in his life. It was a period of decline, and in repudiating it altogether,...

    £850

  17. POPE, [Alexander].

    The second Epistle of the second Book of Horace, imitated by Mr. Pope.

    London, R. Dodsley, 1737.

    First edition, the issue (presumably early) with the footnote on p. 12 misnumbered ‘16’ for 15.

    £275

  18. POPE, [Alexander].

    The sixth Epistle of the first Book of Horace imitated.

    London, L. Gilliver, 1737.

    First edition. Foxon P965; Rothschild 1638; Griffith 476.

    £250

  19. STRYPE, John.

    The Life of the learned Sir John Cheke, Kt., first Instructer, afterwards Secretary of State, to King Edward VI.,...

    London, John Wyat, 1705.

    First edition of Strype’s biography of the courtier and classicist Sir John Cheke, inaugural Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge.

    £450

  20. PURSEY, Thomas.

    The last General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland.

    [Edinburgh, T. Pursey, 1900.]

    A photographic tour-de-force, assembling many hundreds of individual photographic portraits neatly incorporated into a painted scenario, and then reproduced as a photogravure, depicting all the attendees of the last General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, held in May 1900. Evidently a...

    £2000