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.
  1. STOURM, Auguste-African, dit Eugène.

    Opinion sur la question des sucres.

    [Paris, Bourgogne & Martinet, n. d., but 1840.]

    First and only edition of this work on the sugar beet trade; the French had begun cultivating sugar beet during the Napoleonic wars, when the British blocked shipments of cane sugar from colonies such as Martinique and Guadeloupe.

    £100

  2. SURTEES, Robert Smith.

    The Horseman’s Manual, being a Treatise on Soundness, the Law of Warranty, and generally on the Laws relating...

    London, M.A. Pittman for Alfred Miller, 1831.

    First edition of Surtees’s first work, the only publication to bear his name, from the family of the dedicatee. Though best known for his sporting articles and novels, Robert Smith Surtees (1805–1864) was, alongside his landed interests, a respected jurist in County Durham, serving as justice...

    £1250

  3. [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

  4. [TANGIER.] 

    A Description of Tangier, the Country and People adjoyning.  With an account of the person and government of Gayland,...

    London, for Samuel Speed, 1664. 

    Scarce first edition of this entertaining account of Tangier, in north-western Morocco, during the English occupation of the city, which had begun in 1661 following Charles II’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza, and which would come to an end in 1684. 

    £2750

  5. TARTAGLIA, Niccolò Fontana.

    Quesiti, et inventioni diverse.

    [(Colophon:) Venice, Venturino Ruffinelli ‘ad instantia et requisitione, & a proprie spese de Nicolo Tartalea Brisciano Autire’, July 1546.]

    First edition, annotated throughout by a contemporary reader, of Tartaglia’s highly influential work on ballistics and algebra, containing his polemical rule for solving cubic equations.

    £6750

  6. TATE, William.

    The modern cambist; forming a manual of foreign exchanges, in the direct, indirect, and cross operations of bills...

    London, Effingham Wilson, 1836.

    Third edition, corrected and expanded to reflect changes in the monetary systems of Portugal and Geneva, a new coinage introduced by the East India Company and the opening of trade with China. There is also a new appendix which discusses the mintage regulations for the coins of the United States, reflecting...

    £125

  7. TAYLOR, G. Oswald (photographer).

    Promotional photographic brochure celebrating the coronation of Elizabeth II.

    Nottingham, Fine Stocking Manufacturers Ltd., June 1953.

    An unusual coronation souvenir. The details on the lower wrapper indicate that Oswald Taylor produced the booklet, as well as photographed the series.

    £300

  8. THICKNESSE, Philip.

    A Year’s Journey through the Paix Bâs and Austrian Netherlands … Vol.

    I [all published]. London: Printed in the Year 1784.

    First edition, rare, and possibly suppressed, of a typically idiosyncratic account of a ‘quarrel-ridden tour’ of the Netherlands and Belgium by ‘the most irascible individual within the arena of late eighteenth-century print culture’ (ODNB), with a graphic depiction of the 1762...

    £1850

  9. THOMSON, John.

    Illustrations of China and its People. A Series of two Hundred Photographs, with letterpress descriptive of the...

    London, Sampson Low &c, 1873–1874.

    A good copy of this rare work (vol. I marked second edition, the rest first editions), showing superb images of Imperial China including rare portraits of high government officials as well as a large number of architectural and scenic views; this item ranks amongst the most spectacular photographically...

    £35000

  10. [TIPU SULTAN.]

    Les Indiens, ou Tippoo-Saïb, fils d’Hyder-Ally, &c. Avec quelques particularités sur ce prince, sur ses ambassadeurs...

    A Londres [i.e. Paris?] et se trouve à Paris, chez Le Jay, 1788.

    The apparently unrecorded first issue of this work on Tipu Sultan (1750–1799), ruler of the kingdom of Mysore and implacable enemy of the British East India Company. The only copies recorded institutionally (on ESTC, COPAC, and OCLC) have the title Les indiens, ou Tipou-Sultan, fils D’Ayder-Aly...

    £650

  11. TOOKE, Thomas.

    Thoughts and Details on the high and low Prices of the last thirty Years.

    London, John Murray, 1823.

    First edition of Tooke's first work, discussing the influence of climatic conditions and changing demand on agricultural prices. ‘During the three years which followed the Resumption Act of 1819 prices of nearly all commodities decreased, and the opinion that the fall in prices was the result of the...

    £750

  12. TRAVERS, John.

    A Letter to the Editor of the Courier Newspaper, in Reply to an Article inserted in that Journal of the 22d August,...

    London, Effingham Wilson, 1834.

    Second, expanded edition of this tract on reforming the duties on tea imported from China to Britain, this copy presented to the Sinologist Sir George T. Staunton, member of the Select Committee on Tea Duties and author of the letter appended here, likely with his annotations and corrections; bound...

    £850

  13. TUCKER, Josiah.

    Betydande frågor om handelen, wid tilfålle af de motsäjelser, som skedde emot den sista billen, om utlänningars...

    [v. Oelreich], 1763.

    First Swedish edition, scarce, of this history on the treatment of foreign residents in Britain, Reflections on the Expediency of a Law for the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants (1751–1752). This book comprises only the main body of Part II (1752), ‘Important Queries occasioned by The Rejection...

    £200

  14. TULLOCH, James Dundas Gregorie.

    Small archive relating to his military career.

    1826-1854.

    An interesting set of documents tracing the military career of James Dundas Gregorie Tulloch (1804-1879), from his initial struggles to obtain a commission to his promotion to Major under Queen Victoria. Tulloch was the younger brother of the statistician Major-General Sir Alexander Murray Tulloch (1803-1864),...

    £2000

  15. [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

  16. WALTON, Izaak, and James THORPE, illustrator.

    Complete Angler or contemplative man’s recreation … with illustrations...

    London & Edinburgh, T.N. Foulis, [1925].

    A very attractive illustrated edition of Walton’s classic fishing manual in a deluxe Bayntun binding.

    £500

  17. [WARD, Edward, and VOLTAIRE.] 

    The Humourous and Diverting Story of Two Sailors, Who, in order to recruit their Stock of...

    6, Punderson’s-Place, Bethnal-Green-Road’, [c. 1800?]. 

    Seemingly unrecorded edition of this humorous chapbook tale of two penniless sailors who turn to piracy in an attempt to pay their rent, printed with a translation of Voltaire’s Memnon and the anonymous poem ‘Clara’. 

    £450

  18. WILLIAMSON, Thomas; Samuel HOWITT, illustrator.

    Oriental Field Sports; being a complete, detailed and accurate Description of the...

    London, J. McCreery for H. R. Young, 1819.

    Second quarto edition, one of the most beautiful of all hunting books, first published in 1805–7.

    £3250

  19. WINES, Enoch Cobb.

    A Peep at China, in Mr. Dunn’s Chinese Collection; with miscellaneous Notices relating to the Institutions...

    Philadelphia, for Nathan Dunn, 1839.

    Scarce first edition of a guide to the remarkable collection of Chinese artefacts accumulated by the American businessman Nathan Dunn (1782–1844).

    £1250

  20. [WUHAN.]

    武汉影集 [Wuhan yingji; ‘Wuhan Album’].

    Wuhan, 国营长虹摄影图片社 [State Changhong Photographic Agency], [1950s].

    Exceptionally rare promotional photobook depicting views of Wuhan with a striking cover and twelve gelatin silver prints tipped in.

    £150