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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. [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

  2. 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

  3. [JOCKEY CLUB.] HERVEY, John.

    Racing in America, 1922-1936, written for the Jockey Club.

    New York, Scribner Press for the Jockey Club, 1937.

    First edition of the first volume to be written by Hervey, bringing the history begun by W.S. Vosburgh up to the time of publication. ‘In the previous volume [Racing in America, 1866-1921] the theme was exclusively racing, and breeding was only incidentally interwoven throughout the narrative....

    £350

  4. [JOCKEY CLUB.] HERVEY, John.

    Racing in America, 1665-1865 … written for the Jockey Club.

    New York, Scribner Press for the Jockey Club, 1944.

    First edition, limited, numbered 323 of 800 copies. The first volume of the Jockey Club’s monumental history of racing in America, covering earliest period of American racing, from the foundation of the first track on Long Island until the end of the Civil War, some two centuries later.

    £720

  5. [JOCKEY CLUB.] KELLEY, Robert F.

    Racing in America, 1937-1959, written for the Jockey Club.

    New York, North River Press for the Jockey Club, 1960.

    First edition, limited, numbered 474 of 1000 copies. A continuation of the chronicles of American racing, the present volume is the first to adopt the form of annals. ‘This addition to The Jockey Club’s volumes of Racing in America is different in format than any of its predecessors....

    £180

  6. [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

  7. 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

  8. KERKHERDERE, Jan Gerard.

    De situ Paradisi Terrestris ... Praecedit ... conatus novus de Cepha reprehenso ex Galatarum secundo capite.

    Leuven, Martin van Overbeke, 1729.

    First edition of this work attempting to identify the geographic location of the Garden of Eden, the earthly Paradise, accompanying his conjecture with a map engraved by P.E. Boultats of Antwerp.

    £550

  9. [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

  10. KOTZEBUE, August Friedrich Ferdinand von.

    Travels from Berlin, through Switzerland, to Paris, in the Year 1804 … Translated from...

    London, Richard Phillips, 1804.

    First edition in English, quickly translated from Kotzebue’s Erinnerungen aus Paris (September 1804). As the German title suggests, the Travels is in fact largely devoted to Paris, with lively observations on Napoleon, Madame Recamier, the Musée des monuments français and Musée...

    £500

  11. KOTZEBUE, Otto von.

    A voyage of discovery into the South Sea and Beering’s Straits, for the purpose of exploring a north-east...

    London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821.

    First edition in English, translated from the German edition of the same year, of Kotzebue’s classic voyage; ‘a prized edition’ (Hill).

    £3000

  12. [LABOURS OF THE MONTHS &c.] 

    Januarius.  Februarius.  Merz.  April … 

    Nuremberg, Joh. Andreae Endterische Handlung, [second half of eighteenth century]. 

    A scarce popular print depicting the labours of the months and signs of the zodiac, four continents, the four classical elements, and the four seasons. 

    £475

  13. 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

  14. 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

  15. LATHAM, Simon.

    Latham’s Falconry: or, the Faulcons Lure, and Cure: in two Books. The first, concerning the ordering and training...

    London, Printed by Thomas Harper, for John Harison, 1633.

    First collected edition (third edition of volume I, originally published in 1614 and reissued in 1615, second edition of volume II, originally published in 1618).

    £8500

  16. LAWRENCE, James Henry.

    A Picture of Verdun, or the English Detained in France … from the Portfolio of a Detenu.

    London, T. Hookham junior & E.T. Hookham, 1810.

    First edition of this remarkable account of life among the British prisoners in Napoleonic Verdun, following the mass arrest of English residents in and visitors to France.

    £600

  17. LAWRENCE, Richard.

    The complete Farrier and British Sportsman, containing a systematic Enquiry into the Structure and animal Economy...

    London, W. Clowes for Thomas Kelly, [c. 1816].

    Likely first edition, dedicated ‘to the noblemen and gentlemen of the Quorn Hunt’. Much unlike his earlier scholarly work on veterinary science, Lawrence’s Complete Farrier and British Sportsman is written for gentlemen and noblemen with an interest not in farriery but in fox-hunting,...

    £250

  18. LAWRENCE, Richard.

    The complete Farrier and British Sportsman, containing a systematic Enquiry into the Structure and animal Economy...

    London, W. Clowes for Thomas Kelly, [c. 1823].

    A sporting compendium, dedicated ‘to the noblemen and gentlemen of the Quorn Hunt’. Much unlike his earlier scholarly work on veterinary science, Lawrence’s Complete Farrier and British Sportsman is written for gentlemen and noblemen with an interest not in farriery but in fox-hunting,...

    £180

  19. 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

  20. 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