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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. [BUNBURY, Henry William.] ‘GAMBADO, Geoffrey’.

    Annals of Horsemanship, containing Accounts of accidental Experiments and experimental...

    London, W. Nicholson for W. Baynes, 1808.

    Third edition of Bunbury’s satirical work with humorous etchings. First published in 1791 and often presented as a continuation of Bunbury’s Academy for grown Horsemen (published in 1784 also under the name Gambado), the Annals of Horsemanship is a parody of Arthur Young’s...

    £475

  2. [BUNBURY, Henry William.] ‘GAMBADO, Geoffrey’.

    An Academy for grown Horsemen, containing the completest Instructions for Walking,...

    London, W. Dickinson, S. Hooper, and Messrs Robinsons, 1787 [colophon: Mount Vernon (NY), William Edwin Rudge, 1929].

    Limited edition, reprinted from the first, numbered 142 of 400 copies. A humorous parody of the manuals on horsemanship so fashionable in the late eighteenth century, Bunbury’s text was published pseudonymously as Geoffrey Gambado but the plates credited to his own name, with reference to the...

    £85

  3. BUONACCORSI, Biagio, and Niccolò VALORI. 

    Diario de’ successi piu importanti seguiti in Italia, & particolarmente in...

    Florence, Filippo & Jacopo Giunta, 1568. 

    First edition of an insider account of Medici politics by Biagio Buonaccorsi (1472–1522), colleague and confidant of Machiavelli, bound with the first edition of Malespini’s history of Florence and owned by Claude-Enoch Virey, secretary to Henri II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé. 

    £1000

  4. BURCKHARDT, Johann Ludwig (John Lewis).

    Travels in Arabia, comprehending an account of those territories in Hedjaz which the Mohammedans...

    London, Henry Colburn, 1829.

    First edition, in one volume, recounting Johann Ludwig Burckhardt’s journey to Mecca on behalf of the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior of Africa in 1814.

    £3750

  5. BURTON, Richard Francis, and James MACQUEEN.

    The Nile Basin. Part I. Showing Tanganyika to be Ptolemy’s western lake reservoir....

    By James M’Queen … London, Tinsley Brothers, 1864.

    First edition, complete with the three maps. This work, ‘which absolutely exudes venom, was the heart of Burton’s frontal attack on [John Hanning] Speke’s geographical theories. Burton dedicated it, with a marked degree of sarcasm, to “those kind friends, especially to those members of...

    £2500

  6. [CAESAR.]  RAMUS, Petrus (Pierre de la RAMÉE). 

    Liber de militia C. Julii Caesaris, cum praefatione Joannis Thomae Freigii. 

    Frankfurt, heirs of Andreas Wechel, 1584. 

    An attractively bound copy of Ramus’s uncommon treatise on Caesar’s military tactics, with unusual edge decoration.  The humanist Petrus Ramus (1515–1572) published widely on classical history and grammar while teaching at the Collège de France.  He was briefly forced from his post after...

    £450

  7. 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

  8. 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

  9. CARDONNEL, Adam de.

    Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland [I–II] …

    London: Printed for the Author, and sold by Edwards … also by Edwards’s, in Halifax. 1788.

    First edition, the very rare issue with the plates in sepia, printed directly onto thick wove paper.

    £975

  10. CARY, John.

    ‘Cary’s New Pocket Plan of London, Westminster and Southwark; with all the adjacent Buildings in St. George’s...

    London, ‘Printed for J. Cary, Engraver, Map & Printseller, No 181, Strand,’ 1 January 1800.

    Cary’s folding pocket map of London, from Hyde Park and Chelsea in the West to Bethnal Green and Rotherhithe in the East, showing the development of London’s communications network.

    £450

  11. [CAVALRY.]

    Cours d’équitation militaire, a l’usage des corps de troupes a cheval, approuvé par s. exc. le ministre de la guerre.

    Saumur, H. Fournier for A. Degouy and Névo-Degouy, and Paris, Anselin, 1830.

    First edition of an encyclopædic work on horsemanship for the use of the French cavalry, with the suite of plates. ‘L’ouvrage est en effet une veritable encyclopédie hippique : hippologie, extérieur, emploi à la selle, au trait et au bat, alimentation, hygiène, maladies et accidens, haras...

    £225

  12. CÉSPEDES Y MENESES, Gonzalo de.

    Varia fortuna del soldado Pindaro.

    Lisbon, Geraldo de la Viña, ‘626’ [i.e 1626].

    Rare first edition of this semi-autobiographical picaresque novel, printed while the author was in exile in Lisbon following the publication of his politically controversial Historia apologética en los sucesos del reyno de Aragon (1622).

    £6750

  13. [CHINA.]

    Précis des nouvelles reçues des missions de Chine et des royaumes voisins, en 1819.

    [Paris, Adrien Le Clere, 1819?].

    An extremely rare summary of the state of French Christian missions in Su-Tchuen (China), Tong-King (Vietnam), Cochinchine (Vietnam), Siam (Thailand), and Pondichery (India) in 1819.

    £180

  14. [CHINA.]

    Peking.

    Peking, S[anshichiro] Yamamoto, May 1909.

    Second enlarged edition, with ten further plates compared to the first (1906). A thorough portrayal of the city, through the eyes of foreigner-photographer Yamamoto. During the Boxer Rebellion he had come to the city from Tokyo to record events, then stayed. This selection includes a good series...

    £2800

  15. [CHOISY, François Timoléon, Abbé de.]

    Journal ou suite de voyage de Siam. En forme des lettres familieres fait en M.DC.LXXXV...

    Amsterdam, Pierre Mortier, 1687.

    Amsterdam edition, issued the same year as the first Paris edition, recounting a voyage to Siam by the prolific French writer, former cross-dresser, and Jesuit priest, the Abbé de Choisy.

    £300

  16. CHOPPIN, Henri.

    La cavalerie française … illustrée de nombreux dessins et de 16 gravures hors texte en couleurs.

    Paris, Garnier brothers, 1893.

    First edition of a well illustrated history of the French cavalry. A cavalry captain, Henri Choppin (1831–1916) published widely on the French military: the first of several works devoted to the cavalry, La cavalerie française is handsomely illustrated throughout and accompanied by sixteen...

    £175

  17. CHURCHILL, Winston S.

    A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume I: The Birth of Britain [– Volume II: The New World;...

    London, Cassel & Company Ltd, [1956; – 1956; – 1957; – 1958].

    First editions, with dust-jackets, of Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoples, his last major historical work.

    £200

  18. CHURCHILL, Winston Spencer; F. RHODES, editor; Angus McNEILL, illustrator.

    The River War: An Historical Account...

    [London, Spottiswoode & Co. for] London, New York, & Bombay (Mumbai), Longmans, Green, & Co., 1899.

    First edition of Churchill’s second book, a history of Lord Kitchener’s conquest of Sudan in 1896-99 informed by his own service as both a cavalry officer and a war correspondent on the campaign, profusely illustrated with drawings and maps.

    £2500

  19. [CLIFFORD, Jeronimy].

    The case of Jeronimy Clifford, merchant and planter of Surinam. Paper, No. 160.

    [London, n.p., 1711].

    First extended account of Clifford’s long-running legal battle with the Dutch West India Company in Surinam over Corcabo, his sugar plantation. The earlier publications had been just four pages long; this work furnishes us with plantation account details and testimonies, chronologically arranged with...

    £650

  20. CLÜVER, Philipp.

    Introductio in universam geographiam tam veterem, quam novam …

    Wolfenbüttel, Caspar Johann Bismarck for Conrad Buno, 1686.

    The 1686 edition of perhaps the most important geographical textbook of the early modern period, an introduction to global geography by the German antiquarian and geographical pioneer Philipp Clüver, enlarged and supplemented by the German geographer Johann Buno.

    £2500