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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. [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

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. [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

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. [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

  8. 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

  9. LAING, John.

    An account of a voyage to Spitzbergen; containing a full description of that country, of the zoology of the north,...

    [Balfour for], London, J. Mawman and David Brown, Edinburgh, 1815.

    First edition of Laing’s account of his voyage as a ship’s surgeon on a whaling vessel under Captain Scoresby to the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, the largest island in the Svalbard archipelago, in 1806 and 1807.

    £850

  10. 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

  11. 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

  12. 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

  13. 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

  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. LEE, Edwin.

    The Principal Baths of Germany [– The Baths of Nassau Baden and the adjacent Districts; – The Baths of central...

    London, Whittaker & Cp., Paris, Galignani & Cp., and Frankfurt & Wiesbaden, Charles Jugel 1840 [– 1841].

    First edition, scarce, of Edwin Lee’s two-volume survey of palliative bathing spots in Germany, including an appendix on the ‘Cold Water Cure’, a combination of induced sweating and cold-water therapy ‘of late very much in vogue’ (appendix).

    £350

  16. LEE, Henry.

    [Cover title:] The White Whale …

    London, R. K. Burt & Co. … 1878.

    First edition, an account of the white Beluga whale by Henry Lee of the Royal Aquarium in Brighton, specifically of the first such whale successfully transported to England, exhibited for four days in 1877 before its death from pneumonia; and of four further whales transported the following year....

    £225

  17. LELAND, John.

    The Itinerary of John Leland, in or about the Years 1535-1543. Edited by Lucy Toulmin Smith, with a Foreword by Thomas...

    London, Centaur Press Ltd, 1964.

    The authoritative edition of Leland’s Itinerary, a monument of English bibliography and antiquarian research. The Itinerary comprises the notes of the antiquary John Leland (c. 1503–1552) on his journeys through England and Wales during the dissolution of the monasteries. According...

    £50

  18. [LE MERCIER DE LA RIVIÈRE, Pierre Paul].

    Die glückliche Nation, oder der Staat von Felizien. Ein Muster der vollkommensten Freyheit...

    Leipzig, Voss, 1794.

    Very rare first German edition of Le Mercier de la Rivière’s physiocratic utopia L’heureuse nation, ou Relation du gouvernement des Féliciens, which had first appeared in French in 1792.

    £1250

  19. LÉVI-STRAUSS, Claude.

    The Tupí-Cawahíb.

    Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1948.

    A set of offprints of four articles by Lévi-Strauss from the Smithsonian’s Handbook of South American Indians, inscribed by the author. In each article Claude Lévy-Strauss (1908–2009) provides an illustrated introduction to an Amazonian group, recording their history, social and political...

    £300

  20. 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