Incidents of travel in [central America, Chiapas and] Yucatan

Composite copy: the first volume corresponds to the second American edition, which is partially original (with the shortened title Incidents of Travel in Yucatan), while the second is the first edition (with the full title); the text of the first volume being expanded compared to the 1841 edition. This title, originally printed in 15,000 copies, was a tremendous success and saw numerous reprints between 1841 and the author’s death in 1852 (cf. Sabin 91 297 and 91 299).

Illustrated with 96 engravings distributed as follows: 54 illustrations (some full-page in-text), including 21 plates out of text (among them a folding map and a folding frontispiece) for the first volume; for the second: 42 out-of-text plates, including 2 double-page spreads.

Contemporary early 20th-century bindings in black half shagreen, spines with five raised bands framed by blind tooling, minor rubbing to spines, slight discoloration to outer margins of boards, marbled paper-covered boards, comb-marbled endpapers and pastedowns, gilt top edges.

This work holds a major place in American travel literature: it marked the public’s first real encounter with the vestiges of Maya civilization. But it is not solely archaeological in focus: as a travel narrative, highly fashionable at the time, it blends anecdotes, character portraits, detailed descriptions of visited sites, extensive commentary on the political context and the civil war then tearing Central America apart, as well as the pioneering archaeological component, which in fact constitutes only about one-third of the work.

Born into a wealthy New York family, John Lloyd Stephens (1805–1852) undertook two expeditions to Central America following his 1836 meeting with the draughtsman Frederick Catherwood (1799–1854). Upon the death of the United States envoy to the Federation of Central America, Stephens leveraged his political connections to obtain a diplomatic mission to the region from President Van Buren. Central America at that time was in complete turmoil: a civil war raged between the federal government and the various states within the Federation. Stephens hoped that his diplomatic passport would afford him some protection during the journey. On 3 October 1839, Stephens and Catherwood sailed from British territory toward Belize, beginning a journey of several months that would take them to Copán, Quiriguá, Toniná, Palenque, and finally Uxmal. The second expedition, undertaken in October 1842 following the phenomenal success of their first publication, took the pair from Uxmal to Tulum, via Sayil, Labná, Kabah, and Chichén Itzá, covering over forty Maya sites. The text of this second edition reflects the added knowledge gained during this follow-up expedition.

Provenance: From the library of explorer and archaeologist Alexis-Antoine-Maurice de Périgny (1877–1935), with his pictorial bookplate mounted on the front endpapers.

De Périgny’s principal expeditions focused specifically on Mexico and Central America (Guatemala, Costa Rica, 1909–1913). He himself published Le Yucatan inconnu (1908) on the region.