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  1. MOORE, John Edward (or Edmund) Sharrock.

    To the mountains of the moon being an account of the modern aspect of Central Africa,...

    London, Hurst and Blackett, 1901.

    First edition recounting the journey of J. E. S. Moore and the Tanganyika expedition in central Africa between 1899 and 1900. Moore and the expedition were on the search for the so-called ‘mountains of the moon’, a legendary mountain range which they identified with the Rwenzori mountains straddling...

    £125

  2. MOLLIEN, Gaspard Theodore.

    Travels in Africa, to the sources of the Senegal and Gambia, in 1818 … Translated from the French.

    London, for Sir Richard Phillips and Co., 1820.

    First edition of an abridged translation recounting the French explorer Gaspard Theodore Mollien’s west African expeditions in 1818. Mollien first developed an interest in exploration after reading Robinson Crusoe as a young boy but was forced to take a job as a civil servant with the Marine and Colonial...

    £120

  3. PRINGLE, Thomas.

    Narrative of a residence in South Africa …

    London, William Tegg, 1864.

    Rare 1864 edition summarising the formative years spent in South Africa by Thomas Pringle, a well-known Scottish abolitionist and the so-called ‘Father of South African poetry’. The Pringle family first decided to emigrate to South Africa in 1820, with Thomas Pringle – by then a published poet...

    £150

  4. GILL, William.

    The river of golden sand: being the narrative of a journey through China and eastern Tibet to Burmah ... Condensed...

    London, John Murray, 1883.

    Second condensed edition recounting the author’s 1877 expedition through China and Tibet to Burma, featuring new illustrations and a memoir of Gill, with a dedicatory inscription from the author’s sister to the front free endpaper.

    £200

  5. PARKYNS, Mansfield.

    Life in Abyssinia: being notes collected during three years’ residence and travels in that country …

    London, John Murray, 1853.

    First edition, a study of Abyssinia based on the author’s travels through the country, including remarks and observations on climate, natural history, hunting, missionary activity, slavery, manners and customs, government and law, diseases and modes of cure, and accounts of journeys to Taccazy, Cafta,...

    £175

  6. GLEICHEN, Edward.

    With the mission to Menelik 1897 ...

    London, Edward Arnold, 1898.

    First edition recounting the author’s participation in an 1897 diplomatic mission to Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia. An Anglicised German from the family of Hohenlohe whose hereditary estate dated back to the early seventeenth century, Gleichen served first as a courtier (he was Paige of Honour to...

    £100

  7. CARDINALL, Allan Wolsey.

    In Ashanti & beyond. The record of a resident magistrate’s many years in tropical Africa, his arduous...

    London, Seeley, Service & Co., 1927.

    First edition, a very nice copy, one of a number of books by the colonial administrator in Africa and later governor of the Falkland Islands Sir Allan Wolsey Cardinall (1887-1956) describing his time in the Gold Coast and Ashanti, present-day Ghana.

    £60

  8. BARNWELL, Patrick Joseph.

    Visits and despatches (Mauritius, 1598-1948) …

    Port Louis, The Standard Printing Establishment, 1948.

    First and only edition of P.J. Barnwell’s documentary history of Mauritius featuring more than fifty extracts of various accounts of the island from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century.

    £100

  9. NEW, Charles.

    Life, wanderings, and labours in Eastern Africa. With an account of the first successful ascent of the equatorial...

    London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1874.

    Second edition recounting the travels through central and eastern Africa by the explorer Charles New, a former member of the Livingstone relief expedition and the first European to reach the snow line of Kilimanjaro.

    £200

  10. SHOOTER, Joseph.

    The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu country ...

    London, E. Stanford, 1857.

    First edition, one of the earliest studies of the Zulu people.

    £175

  11. BURTON, Richard Francis editor and translator.

    The lands of Cazembe. Lacerda’s journey to Cazembe. In 1798 … also journey of...

    London, John Murray, 1873.

    First edition thus containing three first-hand accounts of journeys across southern and central Africa translated into English, including Richard Francis Burton’s edition of the travel diaries of the Portuguese explorer Francisco de Lacerda (1753-1798). The signature to the title appears to be that...

    £300

  12. BURTON, Richard Francis.

    Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains. An exploration …

    London, Tinsley Brothers, 1863.

    First edition, in two volumes, recounting Burton’s travels to the city of Abeokuta (south-west Nigeria), as well as his subsequent voyage to Mount Cameroon volcano. Burton left Lagos for Abeokuta, the capital of the Egba Yoruba tribe, in October 1861, arriving on the first of November. Although he...

    £400

  13. DUNDAS, Anne.

    Beneath African glaciers. The humours, tragedies and demands of an East African government station as experienced...

    London, H.F.& G. Witherby, 1924.

    First edition, an account of the years spent in Africa by Anne Dundas, wife of an African colonial official.

    £125

  14. LEWIS, Wyndham.

    The Red Priest.

    London, Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1956.

    First edition, the last book published before Lewis’s death in March 1957. Bridson and Lewis had corresponded about a possible radio adaptation but Bridson had concluded it was over-episodic and would not translate well (letter of 6 March 1951).

    £150

  15. DUFTON, Henry.

    Narrative of a journey through Abyssinia in 1862-3. With an appendix on “The Abyssinian captives question” …

    London, Chapman & Hall, 1867.

    First edition recounting the author’s expedition through Abyssinia, along with three essays on the Abyssinian prisoner crisis following a diplomatic dispute between the Emperor Tewodros II and the British colonial government.

    £850

  16. RAIMONDI, Eugenio. 

    Delle caccie … libri Quattro, aggiuntovi’n questa nuova ’mpressione il quinto libro della villa. 

    [Naples, Lazzaro Scoriggio, 1626.]

    Second edition, expanded and extended, with a new series of striking venatic plates.  The series of plates (attributable to Nicolas Perrey, who signs the title), showing composite scenes of hunters pursuing animals from birds and fish to lions and elephants, is wholly new, replacing the woodcut...

    £2500

  17. CATANEO, Girolamo. 

    De arte bellica, sive de designandis ac construendis arcibus et propugnaculis, necnon et de iis oppugnandis,...

    Lyons, Jean de Tournes, 1600.

    First Latin edition, scarce on the market, of this handsomely illustrated military classic, first published in Italian at Brescia in 1564.  Edited and published by Jean de Tournes, this edition is dedicated to Henry IV of France.  The military architect Cataneo (active 1540–1584) was considered,...

    £1850

  18. BIANCHINI, Giuseppe. 

    Enarratio pseudo-Athanasiana in symbolum ante hac inedita, et Vigilii Tapsitani de Trinitate ad Theophilum...

    Verona, Pierantonio Berno, 1732. 

    First edition, presented by the author, of this scarce work on the Apostles’ Creed by the Veronese Oratorian, Biblical and liturgical scholar, and librarian Giuseppe Bianchini (1704–1764), with a delightful frontispiece depicting the city of Verona. 

    £675

  19. BUSTEED, Henry Elmsley. 

    The Serampore Portrait.  Is it Madam Grand? 

    Calcutta, Thacker, Spink, & co., 1903. 

    First edition of a study probing the identity of a portrait then displayed at the Library of the Baptist Mission College at Serampore, India.  The portrait in question, attributed to the German neo-classical painter Johann Zoffany who was frequently patronised by British royalty and who had a...

    £125

  20. DURHAM, Arthur E. 

    Transverse Section of Wood (Salisburia). 

    Circa 1870s. 

    A rare and attractive microphotograph of a transverse section of Ginkgo biloba wood, traditionally used in Chinese medicine and homeopathy. 

    £1100