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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. 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

  2. MONETA, José Manuel, and Robert Keith HEADLAND, (ed.).

    Four Antarctic Years in the South Orkney Islands: an Annotated...

    London, Bernard Quaritch Ltd, 2017.

    One man’s fascinating record of four winters in the Antarctic during the 1920s, the period of transition from the isolation of the Heroic Age to the beginnings of radio communication with the world outside.

    £50

  3. RISLEY, Herbert Hope, Sir et al.

    The gazetteer of Sikhim. With an introduction by H. H. Risley ... Edited in the Bengal Government...

    Calcutta, printed at the Bengal Secretariat Press, 1894.

    First edition of this comprehensive survey of Sikkim, in northeast India (bordering Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal and West Bengal), which had become a princely state of British India in 1890. The chapters cover, inter alia, the region’s history, geography, laws, geology, agriculture, vegetation, butterflies,...

    £2500

  4. CAPRA, Alessandro.

    Geometria famigliare, et instruttione pratica d’Alessandro Capra architetto cremonese. Per gl’edificii nuovi,...

    Cremona, Gio[vanni] Pietro Zanni, 1671.

    An exceedingly rare extract from the first edition of the treatise of practical geometry by the architect and inventor Alessandro Capra (c. 1605–c. 1685), seemingly prepared and sold as a manual for surveyors and early estate agents.

    £575

  5. CAMPBELL, Thomas.

    Gertrude of Wyoming; a Pennsylvanian Tale. And other Poems.

    London, T. Bensley, for the Author ... 1809.

    First edition of Campbell’s most re-printed poem, based on a massacre of American patriots by British forces and their Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) allies in 1778. Its portrayal of ‘pastoral innocence evoked only to be destroyed by the savagery of war (embodied in this case by Mohawk allies of...

    £650

  6. [UNGER, Salomo Gottlob.]

    Geschichte des Oesterreich-Russischen und Türkischen Krieges, in den Jahren von 1787. bis 1792. Nebst...

    Leipzig, Wilhelm Gottlob Sommer, 1792.

    First and only edition, extremely rare, of this account of the Austro-Turkish War of 1788-1791, and of the concurrent Russo-Turkish war of 1787-92. It includes the full texts of the Treaty of Sistova of 4 August 1791 and of a separate convention attached to it, in both French and German. While...

    £1250

  7. MENNIE, Donald.

    Glimpses of China. A Series of Vandyck photogravures illustrating Chinese life and surroundings. Shanghai, A. S. 

    Watson & Co. Ltd, [1920?].

    First edition, scarce, with thirty images taken across China. Some of the captions are descriptive, but others, in keeping with the pictorialist aspects of Mennie’s photographic practice, are poetic – “Where peace and calm contentment dwell serene”, “Some dim pavilion where my lady dreams”...

    £1200

  8. LAUTERBACH, Barbara, and Georg Christoph LAUTERBACH.

    A group of five school exercise books comprising geographical dictations.

    Lenk, 1834-1849.

    A charming group of school exercise books from the Swiss village of Lenk im Simmental, unusually bound in decorated printed wrappers.

    £1250

  9. SOONE, William, and Pomponius MELA.

    Gulielmi Sooni Vantesdeni Auditor, sive Pomponius Mela disputator, De situ orbis.

    Cologne, Johann Birckman, 1572.

    First edition of English jurist and cartographer William Soone’s notes on Pomponius Mela’s geography, presented in the form of an imaginary dialogue between the two authors.

    £1750

  10. FORD, Richard (and Ian ROBERTSON, editor).

    A hand-book for travellers in Spain, and readers at home. Describing the...

    [Arundel and London,] Centaur Press, [1966].

    Richard Ford’s classic Hand-book for travellers in Spain, with an introduction by Ian Robertson and a revised index.

    £120

  11. [SURTEES, Robert Smith,] and John LEECH (illustrator).

    Handley Cross series.

    London, Bradbury, Agnew, & Co., 1899-1900.

    Limited ‘Master of Foxhounds’ edition, finely printed at the Whitefriars Press. Having published the first editions of several of Surtees’s sporting novels, Bradbury, Agnew, & Co. gathered and reprinted the six most successful as the ‘Handley Cross series’ as luxury sets. Publisher’s...

    £1200

  12. BERENGER, Charles Random de.

    Helps and Hints how to protect Life and Property, with Instructions in Rifle and Pistol Shooting, &c.

    London, J. & C. Adlard for T. Hurst ‘for the Proprietor … at the Stadium, Chelsea’, 1835.

    First edition, with advice on riding and driving, illustrated by George and Robert Cruikshank. A marksman and inventor with an ‘inclination to self-publicity and aggrandisement’ (Credland), Charles Random de Berenger (1772–1845) in 1830 established ‘the Stadium’ or ‘British National...

    £180

  13. [MAP.]

    Henan quansheng yutu 河南全省輿圖 [‘Map of the whole province of Henan’].

    [China, c. 1835.]

    Extremely rare map of the province of Henan, produced in China. We have been unable to trace this map in the Library of Congress.

    £1800

  14. LEAKE, Stephen Martin.

    Heraldo Memoriale, or Memoirs of the College of Arms from 1727 to 1744. Edited by Anthony Richard Wagner.

    The Roxburghe Club, 1981.

    Stephen Martin Leake was Garter principal king of arms from 1754 to 1773. The three volumes of his extensive manuscript journal, Heraldo-Memoriale, are preserved in the College of Arms.

    £100

  15. ABBEVILLE, Claude d’.

    Histoire de la mission des peres Capucins en l’isle de Maragnan et terres circonvoisines ou est traicte...

    Paris, François Huby, 1614.

    Second edition, enlarged and revised from the first edition published earlier the same year, a handsome copy, of the first written account of the Capuchin mission to Maranhão, an island on the coast of Brazil, of which, Sabin notes, this is the earliest mention. In 1612 the mission, composed...

    £30000

  16. LANCINA, Juan Alfonso Rodríguez de.

    Historia de las reboluciones del Senado de Messina, que ofrece al sacro, Catolico, real nombre...

    Madrid, Por Julian de Paredes, impressor de libros, en la Plaçuela del Angel, 1692.

    First and only edition of this rare account of the anti-Spanish revolt of Messina, in Sicily, which broke out in 1674 and lasted until 1678, by Juan Alfonso Rodríguez de Lancina (c. 1649–1703). Lancina, a judge of the Grand Court of the Vicaria, the highest criminal court of the Kingdom of...

    £2500

  17. PLINY the Elder.

    Historiae mundi libri XXXVII, cum castigationibus et adnotationibus doctiss. & variis praeterea lectionibus ex...

    Frankfurt, Claude de Marne and heirs of Jean Aubry, 1608.

    First Frankfurt edition of Pliny’s Natural History, here bound as an enormous single volume with strikingly decorated edges featuring acorns and scrolls.

    £1400

  18. 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

  19. [OSBORNE, Francis.]

    Historical memoires on the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, and King James.

    London: Printed by T. Grismond, and are to be sold by T. Robinson … in Oxon. 1658.

    First edition of Osborne’s history of the reigns of Elizabeth I and James VI and I, two exemplary leaders of the Protestant English cause, with which Osborne was much taken in his works.

    £475

  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