First editions of travel and exploration accounts, first discoveries, travel journals and explorers' accounts

Work published by the Japanese Ministry of Railways, admirably illustrated with 166 illustrations. This new edition was entirely revised and the illustration is completely new. The Ministry of Railways published this collection from 1923 to 1928; from 1923 to 1925, the collection contained numerous bird's-eye view maps by Yoshida, which were replaced by photographs and now only adorn the pastedowns. This is the first collection to use photography with 126 black and white photographs and 18 hand-colored ones. 22 color prints by Hatsusaburo Yoshida. 7 folding color maps and several black and white maps in-text.
Cloth binding and cardboard slipcase. Pale green cloth covers. Smooth spine with...

First editions of the first two volumes, illustrated with two frontispieces, two engraved title pages, and sixty fine steel-engraved plates after drawings by Thomas Allom.

Publisher's original red cloth bindings in Bradel style, covers richly decorated with gilt borders and central gilt-stamped designs signed J. M. Kronheim on the upper cover of each volume, smooth spines decorated with gilt figures, gilt lettering for titles, volume numbers and publisher's imprint, all edges gilt. Minor rubbing and soiling to the bindings, spines faded, some foxing throughout, ink inscriptions erased by scraping from the front pastedown of each volume.

First edition of this travel narrative with reproductions of the photographs Jack London took during his voyage, including one in color as frontispiece. Copy from the first printing.

Publisher's light blue binding, with a color depiction of the sailing ship “Snark” on the front cover, title and author in gilt on the front cover, smooth spine with gilt title, author and publisher. Very slight rubbing to the binding, otherwise a very fine copy.

First bilingual English-French edition, illustrated with three engraved title pages and one hundred and thirty-two steel-engraved plates after drawings by Samuel Prout and James Duffield Harding, with tissue guards.

Publisher's brown half-chagrin bindings, boards in blind-stamped percaline, a gilt trophy at the centre of each board, a small gilt coat of arms at the head of the upper board of each volume, spines richly gilt with ornamental tooling, bilingual title and volume number gilt-lettered on the spines, yellow paper endpapers, gilt edges. Spines and corners lightly rubbed, some scuffing, one joint of the third volume split at the foot, occasional foxing.

A pleasing collection of...

Sixth issue of the year 1947, richly illustrated with photographic reproductions, including numerous works by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Illustrated cover by Jean Lurçat. Contributions by Albert Camus, Alexandre Astruc, Darius Milhaud, Iain Lang, Robert Sabin, Nancy Newhall, Newton Arvin, Jacques Delamain, Beaumont Newhall, Jean Vermandoy, and Woody Guthrie.

Cover slightly rubbed and soiled, a loss to the spine, leaves slightly browned.

Ex-libris of Pierre Mercier.

French first edition, translated by Louis Champion de Cicé, of this treatise by Longobardo, bound with Lettre d'Eusèbe romain by Mabillon (Grenoble, Etienne Bon, 1698, 88 pp.); and Lettre à Madame de Lionne by Bernardino della Chiesa (n.p., n.d., 84 pp.)

A rare copy of one of the principal Western sources on Chinese philosophy, written by the Jesuit missionary Longobardo, who succeeded Ricci as superior of the Jesuit China mission. Also with an uncommon Grenoble edition of Mabillon's pamphlet, which opened the debate on the validity of the cult of the catacomb saints. At the end of the volume, in echo of Longobardo, is bound a response by Bernardino della Chiesa, apostolic legate in China...

First edition, illustrated with 59 drawings by Léon Bennet and Paul Philippoteaux, 35 facsimiles of early engravings, and 20 maps or plans.

Catalogue S bound in at the end.
Publisher’s brick-red cloth binding in the so-called “Ptolemaic Sphere” design, one of Souze’s most harmonious binding compositions, bound by Engel; upper cover decorated with a special plaque designed by Souze, lower cover of type b with central rosette and darkened corner palmettes; brown endpapers characteristic of the first edition; all edges gilt. 

Scattered foxing. One lower corner bumped, minor rubbing to the upper cover along the joint, lower cover darkened and with a few small stains.

First edition, RBH records no copy sold since 1980, complete with its appendices at the end of the volume.  

Half anthracite calf bindings, bordered with blind-tooled rolls, spine with five false raised bands, numerous gilt fillets and rolls forming a border, blind-tooled ornament in the compartments, burgundy calf title-pieces, marbled paper boards, marbled paper endpapers and pastedowns, all edges marbled, unnoticeable repears to joints. The binder omitted to include the imprint page at rear of vol. I and II. 

Illustrated with a folding colour map of Haiti.

Rare copy of this fictionalised biography of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who, under the pen of the abolitionist Harriet Martineau, becomes...

First edition for which no deluxe paper copies were issued.

Spine slightly sunned with small losses at head and foot, a slight marginal loss and a transverse crease to the lower cover.

A rare copy of Alexandra David-Néel's second work.

First edition, illustrated with a very large folding map of the Indo-Chinese peninsula, lithographed in colours and bound at the end (cf. Cordier, Indosinica, p. 1000.)

Bradel binding in green half cloth, smooth spine, red shagreen title label, marbled paper boards, covers doubled and restored and preserved, modern binding signed Laurenchet.

Published in the "Revue indo-chinoise", issues 82–87. In 1898, Laos was incorporated into the Indochinese Union at the initiative of Paul Doumer, Governor-General of Indochina from 1897 to 1902.

Manuscript bookplate on the cover.

Very rare first edition of this pamphlet issued by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, recounting the martyrdom of several Catholic missionaries in Tonkin in 1837 and 1838.

Only one copy recorded in WorldCat (Biblioteca Casanatense). No copy in the CCF.

Modern binding in half mottled tan calf, smooth spine ruled in gilt, date and place gilt at foot, longitudinal spine label, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, original wrappers preserved.

Some foxing.

First edition, apparently privately printed at the author's expense, illustrated with 15 full-page plates and a folding map (Cf. Lorenz XII, 830).

Contemporary Bradel binding in full paper-covered boards with a gilt tortoiseshell pattern, smooth spine slightly sunned, navy blue shagreen lettering-piece, minor rubbing to the head and foot of the spine, brown endpapers and pastedowns, blind-stamped rules to the board edges, corners lightly bumped, bookplate mounted on the front pastedown, contemporary binding.

A few light spots of foxing.

Count Jean de Pontevès-Sabran, major in the 3rd Cuirassiers Regiment, was born at the Château de Grignols (Gironde) in 1851.

Engraved armorial bookplate from the...

This illustrated volume with 58 engraved plates numbered 1-57 (including a plate 15bis) serves as the atlas to the two text volumes of the Manual of Navigation to the West Coast of Africa, issued in 1851.

Not in Polak, although that bibliography carefully records all the author’s other works, as well as the extracts derived from the Manual.

Some foxing, a light marginal waterstain to the right margin of all leaves.

Contemporary half navy blue cloth, smooth spine ruled in blind, paper losses and abrasions to the marbled paper boards, a small label pasted at the head of the upper cover, a few nicks to the edges, corners rubbed.

A lieutenant in the French Navy, Charles Philippes de Kerhallet...

First edition, printed in a small number of copies, of this offprint from the Bulletin de la Société normande de géographie.

Contemporary-style Bradel binding in full burgundy cloth, spine titled lengthwise, burgundy paper endleaves and pastedowns, wrappers doubled and restored and preserved, modern binding. 

Only three copies recorded in the CCF (BnF, Sainte-Geneviève, Condorcet).

This is the author’s second report delivered before a Norman audience (Pelliot had family ties to Normandy), concerning the 1906–1908 expedition to Chinese Turkestan.

It followed the Paris lecture (Trois ans dans la haute Asie, conférence de M. Paul Pelliot au grand amphithéâtre de la Sorbonne, le 10 décembre 1909).

First edition of the French translation, illustrated with a plan of Macao and 51 engraved plates by S. Simon after drawings by William Alexander (cf. Cordier, Sinica, 2387).

In the train of Lord Macartney’s embassy, by Mr Holmes, sergeant-major of his guard; to which have been added the Views, Costumes, etc., of China, by Mr W. Alexander, the plates from the original atlas of the embassy omitted from the French translation, together with their explanations. Translated from the English (…), revised and published with observations on the political and commercial relations of England and France with China, and notes by L. Langlès. 

Nineteenth-century binding in tan half calf, spine with five...

First edition (cf. Mendelssohn I 696; not recorded by Gay.)

Some foxing.

Contemporary half tawny sheep, spine in five compartments with raised bands, bands tooled with gilt dotted rolls and decorated with gilt fillets and fleurons, blue shagreen title-piece, author"s name in green shagreen, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers, top edge red, period binding. 

Auguste Haussmann (Winterzenheim 1815 – Alger-Mustapha 1874), a diplomat, was appointed French consul at the Cape of Good Hope, where he collected traditions still current among the descendants of the French Huguenots who had settled at the Cape after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

Pages 1 to 134 contain an excellent...

First edition.

Contemporary half lemon calf binding, spine darkened and smooth, decorated with gilt quintuple fillets and garlands, black shagreen title label, rubbing to the spine and spine ends, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers, speckled edges, a few nicks to the edges, contemporary binding.

Some light foxing, rubbing and small losses of paper at the corners of the boards, library shelfmark stamp to a flyleaf and the title page.

Only edition: despite the similarity of subject matter, this work should not be confused with the "Rudiments de la langue hindoustani" by the same author.

Joseph Héliodore Garcin de Tassy (1794–1878) was a French orientalist and specialist of India. He...

First edition of the French translation, illustrated with 14 hand-coloured engravings depicting costumes (cf. Colas 961.)

Bindings in blue half morocco, spines slightly faded, with five raised bands and minor rubbing, dates gilt at the foot, illustrated wrappers preserved, marbled paper boards, comb-marbled endpapers and pastedowns, marbled top edges, corners slightly bumped.

Foxing, small paper flaw to the corner of page 37 and misbound leaves in volume 1.

Extremely rare first edition of this work comprising a course intended for students of Arabic at the University of Turin.

No copies recorded in the CCF or the CCI. The title refers to Thomas Van Erpe’s Grammatica arabica [= Erpennio in Italian], published in Leiden in 1613.

Contemporary-style half black cloth over marbled paper boards, smooth spine, unrestamped and restored, bookplate pasted to front pastedown, modern binding.

In 1861, Colonel Luigi Calligaris (1808-1870), who had served from 1833 as an instructor to the beylical army of Tunisia, was permanently recalled to Piedmont and, in recognition of his expertise in Oriental languages, was appointed professor of vernacular Arabic at the...

First edition, comprising only the introductory sections, without the translation itself, which required considerable labour on Biot's part, the text being renowned for its extreme obscurity.

Some foxing.

The Zhouli (Rites of Zhou) was known until the Tang dynasty as the Zhouguan (Offices of Zhou), since it is in fact a list of official functions divided into six categories, which later inspired the six ministries of the imperial administration.

The engineer Édouard-Constant Biot (1803-1850), son of the mathematician Jean-Baptiste Biot, was also a pupil of Stanislas Julien and rapidly became an outstanding sinologist, whose work remains in use to this day.

First edition of the final work devoted to the Canary Islands by the zoologist and ethnographer Sabin Berthelot (1794-1880), whose first stay in the islands dates back to 1820.

From that time onward, he resided for the most part in Tenerife and devoted himself to the study of his adopted country.

At the end of the volume, the work is illustrated with 20 plates printed outside the text, some with coloured subjects.

A few minor spots of foxing.

First edition, one of 1,400 numbered copies, only issue.

Outstanding publisher’s cream silk Bradel binding signed by Engel at the foot of the spine, flat spine decorated with Japanese characters; upper boards in excellent condition, elaborately decorated with a reproduction of Shinman’s starlings against a setting sun from the Henri Cernuschi collection (also illustrated pl. 26, vol. 1); corners slightly rubbed; both volumes complete with their illustrated dust jackets, showing tears and some losses.

Illustrated with 64 tissue-guarded plates, most in colour (13 etchings, 21 heliogravures, 2 typographic engravings in black and gold, 10 chromolithographs and 18 watercolours), the majority...

First edition.

Original wrappers, complete with its color illustrated dust jacket.

Association copy, signed and inscribed: "A mon cher Georges Hugnet en souvenir de cette petite AMERICA '57 et de son ami Orfeo Tamburi / Paris 8.5.'68" [To my dear Georges Hugnet in remembrance of this little AMERICA '57 and his friend Orfeo Tamburi / Paris 8.5.'68]

Fine copy of this journey through the United States, with 37 illustrations by Tamburini from his travels to New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, New Orleans, Harrisburg, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Providence.

Hugnet and Tamburi collaborated on several artists' books: La Morale à Nicolas (1964), and Le Buveur de rosée (1970), a collection of...

First edition, never translated into english, and first issue of the fine steel engravings by Sainson.

The illustrations are distributed as follows:

• for the first volume: 141 plates hors-texte including a frontispiece, and 3 folding maps (Hawaii, Tahiti, and a general map of the voyages).
• for the second volume: 136 plates hors-texte, including a frontispiece, and 4 folding maps (Tonga Islands, Hawaii, Pacific Ocean, general map).
• Bindings in emerald green half polished sheep. Spines with four raised bands, decorated with rocaille tools. Red morocco title labels. Spines uniformly lightened. Minor rubbing.
• The steel-engraved plates, after drawings by M. de Sainson, draughtsman of the Voyage...

First edition illustrated with 8 lithographed plates printed outside the text and protected by tissue guards.

Only two copies recorded in the CCF (BnF and ENC).

The sole edition, uncommon: in fact a miscellany assembled by Fanny Claudet (Madame Prosper Richomme), bringing together "orientalist" texts that had already become classics on this part of the Middle East (Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Poujoulat, Michaud, Francis Wey, etc.).

Second edition comprising the reissue of the first two volumes of the Bulletin, no less scarce than the copies of the first edition, and corresponding to the opening phase of Bourbon’s legislative and regulatory activity, a veritable mine of information not only on legal matters but on every aspect of the island’s daily life (cf. Ryckebusch, 1224).

Contemporary Bradel bindings in half fawn marbled sheepskin, smooth spines ruled in gilt with double fillets, marbled paper sides, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, yellow edges, three corners lightly rubbed.

The third and final volume lacking, occasional foxing, two black stains to the lower cover of the first volume.

Very rare first edition, illustrated with two frontispieces, eighteen plates, and a folding map table bound at the end of the second volume.

Scattered foxing.

Half black shagreen bindings, smooth spines tooled in blind with fillets and small ornaments, gilt lettering at the foot of the spines showing some rubbing, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, light rubbing to the extremities, sprinkled edges, contemporary bindings.

Born at Versailles in 1809, Anne Jean-Baptiste Raffenel entered the Naval administration in 1825.

After several voyages, notably to Africa, the West Indies and the United States, he was posted to Senegal and from 1843 explored the Falémé river together...

Rare first edition, printed in a small number of copies, of this offprint from the Bulletin de la Société de géographie de Marseille, illustrated with 2 folding colour maps outside the text.

Spine split with some loss, marginal dampstaining to the covers, contents in pleasant condition.

Alfred Rabaud (1828-1886) was president of the Société de géographie de Marseille, founded in 1877 and one of the organisations that helped further France's colonial policy.

Rare, albeit in the condition described.

First edition of the French translation (cf. Gay 3146).

Our copy is preserved in the original wrappers, with yellow and black marbled covers and a title label pasted at the head of the spine.

Occasional light foxing; a numbering in black ink facing the half-title.

First edition.

Small losses to the head and tail of the spine, tears to one joint and to the spine neatly restored, a stain at the foot of the upper cover, slight corner losses to the boards; a clean and attractive copy internally.

At the head of the upper cover, an autograph presentation inscription by Édouard Maurel to a colleague.

Second edition, in large part original as it is substantially enlarged (Tulard, 876, for the editions of 1814 and 1818).

Our copy remains sewn in the original plain temporary wrappers.

Backstrips slightly split, a few scattered spots of foxing.

The first volume is illustrated with 4 plates outside the text (including a frontispiece and a folding plan), together with 5 folding tables; the second with 2 engraved plates, one folding table, and, at the end of the volume, a further large folding plan.

This very scarce work expands upon a pamphlet first issued in 1814 (Moscou avant et après l’incendie), devoted chiefly to the burning of Moscow in 1812, of which it offers a first-hand account.

In...

First edition of Jacques Le Meilleur’s medical thesis.

Our copy is presented disbound.

Waterstaining at head throughout, not affecting the text.

First edition of the illustrated French translation, with 2 maps (one folding), in-text figures, and 5 steel-engraved plates by Fauchery (see Chadenat 2669. Borba de Moraes does not mention the very brief passage devoted to the Rio stage of the journey (see volume III, p. 381), which is in fact rather insignificant).

Some foxing.

Contemporary romantic bindings in aubergine half sheep, smooth spines faded and decorated with gilt romantic arabesques, light wear to the headcaps, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, armorial bookplates pasted to the pastedowns, speckled edges.

The English traveller Richard Lander [1804–1834], originally trained as a printer, accompanied...

First edition.

Contemporary full mottled fawn calf, smooth spine gilt with floral tools and gilt geometric tooling, tan calf lettering-piece, gilt rolls to the headcaps now largely faded, a small loss to the upper headcap, some rubbing to the joints, single blind fillet framing the covers, marbled endpapers, gilt fillets to the edges of the boards mostly worn away, yellow sprinkled edges, corners just a little softened; a period binding.

Sole edition of this history of travel since Antiquity, considered from the standpoint of its benefits to trade and commerce.

The work is nominally presented as a translation, though it is in fact by the Marseille man of letters Marc-Antoine Eidous...

Rare first edition, illustrated with a large folding plate containing a hand-coloured map.

Cf. Ferguson I, 814 ("Section 12 deals with Australia and New Zealand"). Not recorded by Sabin and by most other bibliographers.

Bradel case binding in paper-covered boards, beige wrappers, smooth spine with some rubbing, blind title to the spine, original plain wrappers preserved; modern binding.

Small marginal losses to the corners of the first few leaves, not affecting the text.

The plate outside the text offers a world map in which the Protestant areas are shown in pink, together with a detailed list of the various missionary societies by region or city.

Numerous regions are covered: West Africa...

First edition, printed in a small number of copies, of this offprint of an article from the Bulletins de la Société de Géographie d'Anvers.

Our copy is preserved in its original printed blue wrappers.

A few small marginal losses to the spine and wrappers; internally in very good condition.

This communication by the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs concerns accounts of explorations carried out in New Guinea: by the Italian explorer Luigi Maria D'Albertis in 1877, and by the Anglican missionaries J. Chalmers and Charles Dudfield in 1878.

Very rare first edition, printed in a very small number of copies, of this offprint from volume XXIV of the Mémoires de la Société nationale des sciences naturelles et mathématiques de Cherbourg.

Spine split with some loss, foxing and losses to the wrappers; internally in pleasing condition.

Suffering from poor eyesight, Albert-Auguste Fauvel (1851-1909) was forced to abandon the naval career he had hoped to pursue and instead turned to travel and natural-history exploration.

A speaker of Manchu, he entered the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service, where he served from 1872 to 1884. He studied the country’s fauna and flora as well as its economy. From 1884 onwards, he worked as an...

First edition illustrated with a folding map and a folding plate of fossils (cf. O'Reilly, Nouvelle-Calédonie, 486a).

Light waterstaining affecting the plate and the map at the end of the volume.

The palaeontologist Eugène Eudes-Deslongchamps (1830–1889) devoted most of his work to Normandy, his native region, but he also produced geological monographs based on collections assembled by other researchers, as is the case here.

First edition (Cf. Blackmer 485. Loukia Droulia 1123. Atabey 350: "Scarce". Quérard II, 557. Brunet IV, 110.)

Contemporary half tan calf, spine with four raised bands bordered with faded gilt decorative rolls and tooled with gilt rolls and blind-stamped ornaments, modern black morocco lettering-piece, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges.

Some rubbing to spine and boards, occasional foxing.

The work was printed in a small number of copies and was not commercially issued.The announced second part was never published.

It contains observations on Constantinople, Egypt and the Holy Land, Syria and Asia Minor. A chapter devoted to Corsica escaped the notice of...

First edition illustrated with 105 engravings, a heliogravure portrait frontispiece with tissue guard, as well as 2 folding maps at the end of the volume.

Publisher's bottle-green full cloth Bradel binding, smooth spine, upper cover decoratively blocked, bevelled boards, top edge gilt, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, corners lightly rubbed.

A Geneva-born geographer, Alfred Bertrand (1856-1924) undertook numerous journeys for ethnographic purposes as well as missionary work; a fervent Calvinist, he sought not only the conversion of indigenous peoples but also a deeper understanding of their customs, and the destinations of his expeditions were largely determined by the presence of evangelical...

Rare first edition, printed in small numbers, of this Extrait du Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, 2e série, tome XI, illustrated with two folding plates showing topographical cross-sections of various valleys, including that of the Jordan (cf. Hage Chahine, 471; Numa Broc, Asie, pp. 28–29).

Half tan calf, smooth spine gilt-ruled and tooled, some rubbing to the spine, one joint restored at the head, green morocco lettering-piece, marbled boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, red edges; a contemporary binding.

An orientalist and archaeologist, the Comte de Bertou explored Palestine in 1838 with the mission of verifying the hypothesis of an ancient outflow from the Dead Sea towards the...

First edition, printed in a small number of copies, cf. Gay 204; Bourquelot I, 115.

Contemporary full mottled fawn sheep, smooth spine decorated with gilt fillets and fleurons, joints rubbed, red shagreen title-piece, gilt rolls to the headcaps partly faded, gilt dentelle border to the boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, gilt fillets to the edges of the boards, partly browned, red edges.

Joints restored, circular losses filled in the blank areas of the title and half-title pages.

First separate illustrated edition, with a large folding map printed on a separate sheet and hand-coloured in outline bound at the end of the volume.

This geographical study is in fact an extract from Volume II of the first French translation by Stanislas Julien of the Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Record of the Western Regions of the Great Tang), the literary account of Xuanzang's nineteen-year journey (626–645, during the Tang dynasty), from Chang'an across Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent.

The two-volume work had previously been published by the Imprimerie impériale in 1857 and 1858.

Spine split, restored with minor losses, some foxing.

First edition, forming the tenth volume of Voyages, Relations et Mémoires Originaux pour servir à l'Histoire de la Découverte de l'Amérique, published by H. Ternaux-Compans (cf. Sabin, 94854).

Some foxing, front board tending to detach, minor losses to the spine and at the corners of the boards.

This volume contains the Itinerary of the Voyage of the Fleet of the Catholic King to the Island of Yucatan, undertaken in 1518 under the command of Captain General Juan de Grijalva, first published in Italian in Venice in 1522.

It is followed by 19 other previously unpublished pieces relating to the history of Mexico, including: A Brief Account of New Spain and the Great City of Temixititan Mexico...

First edition, illustrated at the end of the second volume with a folding map outside the text (cf. Gay 3608. Numa Broc 307).

Contemporary cherry-red half calf bindings, spines with four false raised bands ruled in gilt and black, red paper-covered boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, speckled edges.

Scattered foxing, restorations to the joints and spines, a light dampstain to the lower margins affecting approximately the final two-thirds of the first volume.

A follower of Saint-Simon, Maurice Tamisier (1810-1875) travelled to Egypt in the aftermath of the 1830 Revolution with a small group led by Père Enfantin, who, following his imprisonment, hoped to unite in Cairo with the archetypal...

First edition (cf. Cordier, Sinica, 1282).

Contemporary flexible grey cloth, smooth unlettered spine slightly faded, blind-ruled borders to the boards, title lettered in gilt at the centre of both boards, a label bearing a handwritten inscription pasted to the upper left-hand corner of the front board, yellow paper pastedowns and endpapers, sprinkled edges.

George Thomas Staunton (1781–1859), an English diplomat and Orientalist, accompanied his father on a mission to China as early as 1792 and thus acquired a sound knowledge of the language at a very young age. In 1810, he published the Ta Tsing leu lee under the title Fundamental Laws of China. The controversy he raises over the Chinese...

Rare first edition. 

Some occasional foxing.

Contemporary-style bradel binding in full blue marbled paper-covered boards, smooth spine, printed wrappers preserved, modern binding.

The author (not to be confused with the diplomat André Grasset de Saint-Sauveur, who died in 1830) was in 1836 the guest of Count Mikhaïl Semionovitch Vorontsov (1782-1856), Governor-General of New Russia and namestnik of Bessarabia since 1823.

Under his administration, Crimea and Odessa in particular experienced rapid development, and he was the first to introduce steamships on the Black Sea in 1828. This brief account provides an interesting testimony to the condition of these southern regions of the Empire prior to...

First French edition, complete with its engraved plate at the end of the volume: "Air mauresque" (see Gay 1352).

Bookseller’s resale label from the antiquarian bookseller Challamel affixed to the foot of the title page.

Bound in contemporary half brown calf, smooth spine with gilt and blind tooling, black morocco title and date labels, some rubbing to the spine, marbled paper boards, handmade laid paper endleaves and pastedowns, speckled edges, corners slightly worn, upper corner missing on one, binding slightly later.

Some foxing, dampstaining affecting the lower margin of the first 70 leaves.

The work was first published in London in 1811 under the title: "An account of Tunis, of its...

First edition, illustrated with a frontispiece depicting the site of the ancient city of Panticapaeum (now Kerch, in Crimea), a title-page vignette showing a view of the modern town, two maps (Greek colonies of the Bosphorus and the Black Sea; the Strait of Kerch, with Macpherson’s route), as well as 12 plates, 9 of them in colour (tumuli, vases, bronzes, oil lamps, statuettes, symbols, inscriptions and various objects recovered during excavations), and numerous wood-engravings in the text.

Cf. Abbey, Travel in aquatint and lithography, 243. Blackmer, 1055.

Publisher’s grey blind-stamped cloth, gilt title lettered lengthwise to the smooth spine, large gilt device blocked at the centre of the...

Very rare first edition illustrated with a folding map bound at the beginning of the volume and 44 plates.

No copy recorded by the CCFr.

Publisher's original full indigo-blue cloth, smooth spine decorated in gilt with dotted tooling and floral ornaments, covers framed with a blind rule, corners lightly bumped.

An amateur repair with adhesive tape to the upper right corner of the first text leaf, a few spots of foxing, chiefly affecting the edges.

The author served as secretary to the very first Brazilian mission sent to China (1880).

First edition with a lithographed frontispiece portrait of the author by Engelmann (cf. Quérard IV, p. 424.)

Contemporary fawn half sheep over boards with small vellum corners, smooth spine richly decorated in gilt within compartments, red sheep lettering-piece, green paper-covered boards, yellow edges.

Restorations to the spine, a small loss in the right margin of one compartment, minor rubbing to the spine.

Light foxing.

Count de Lagarde was a member of the Royal Society of Warsaw, the Academy of Naples, and the Literary Society of the city of Cracow.

Having emigrated to Austria and Poland during the Reign of Terror, he undertook the journey from Moscow to Vienna in 1811, returning to France...

Atlas volume only from this important 8-volume work, produced within the broader movement to generalize the use of statistics initiated by ministers François de Neufchâteau and subsequently Chaptal. 

Contemporary half flexible paper boards, smooth spine without lettering in blue cloth, marbled paper-covered boards with a printed title label of the period to the centre of the upper cover, spine restored.

Marginal dampstaining to the boards, occasional spotting or soiling to the margins of some leaves.

Herbin, who coordinated the work, draws upon official data that prefects were required to supply for this purpose. 

This volume, in accordance with the table of contents, comprises 13 tables...

First edition illustrated with 24 colour figures mounted within the text.

No copy recorded in the CCFr.

Occasional light foxing.

Publisher’s original full lemon-yellow percaline, smooth spine, upper cover decorated in red, minor spotting to the boards.

Pleasing album devoted to the monuments of ancient China, then undergoing rapid transformation at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The text was set before the Chinese Revolution of 1911 and the Great War.

On the half-title, this copy is enriched with a long dated autograph inscription by the American singer and society figure Tryphosa Bates-Batcheller (1876–1952) to Henry de Galard de Brassac, Prince of Béarn and of Chalais (1874–1947)...

First edition of the first and only published part, illustrated with figures in the text and one plate printed separately as a frontispiece.

This is an offprint from the Revue archéologique.

The sole and uncommon edition of this essay exploring a possible Far Eastern influence on Amerindian civilizations.

Gustave d'Eichthal (1804-1886), a Saint-Simonian, was born into a German Jewish family but converted to Catholicism at the age of thirteen; he notably contributed to the emergence of new social sciences such as ethnology and anthropology.

Unbound copy, a few minor spots of foxing.

At the head of the half-title page, an autograph inscription signed by Gustave d'Eichthal to Adam de Longpérier.

First edition of this extremely rare botanical monograph, written by the great navigator following the scientific expedition sent to the Black Sea and the Greek islands aboard La Chevrette, during which he was entrusted with observations in natural history and archaeology (it was during this mission that the Venus de Milo was unearthed).

Cf. Pritzel, 2480.

Late 19th-century brown half cloth, smooth spine with library shelf label at foot and red morocco lettering-piece, marbled paper boards, corners slightly rubbed, speckled edges.

Bound in at the end are three short monographs, all in first edition and published in 1842, the year of d'Urville's death, dealing with various floras of the Near...

First edition in book form, bringing together six contributions previously published in the Revue des Deux Mondes. The archaeologist Albert Dumont (1842-1884) here records his impressions from journeys undertaken during his stay at the French School at Athens.

Signed autograph inscription by Albert Dumont to the spiritualist philosopher Adolphe Franck (1810-1893) at the head of the half-title page.

The ink of the autograph inscription has faded, minor losses to the foot of the first leaves, occasional light foxing.

First edition printed in a small number of copies of this offprint from the Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de France, vol. XX.

The work is illustrated at the beginning of the volume with two folding plates engraved by Charles Oury after drawings by Delamare, gathering several figures.

Contemporary half black shagreen, spine with four raised bands decorated with blind fillets and gilt fleurons, minor rubbing to the joints, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers, speckled edges, contemporary binding.

Foxing.

A former student of the École Polytechnique and an officer, Delamarre (1793-1861), who adopts a particle on the title-page for greater distinction, joined the Commission d'exploration...

Second edition, issued in a limited printing of 75 copies.

Restored unlettered spine, wrappers somewhat soiled, a few light foxing spots.

This work, the first of the three-part series Le Mariage indigène dans les colonies et les protectorats de la France, stands apart from the usual writings of magistrate Claude-Arthur Daguin (1849-1944), whose publications had previously focused almost exclusively on Nogent-en-Bassigny and its surrounding region.

First edition, printed in a small number of copies, issued as an offprint from the Bibliothèque de vulgarisation du Musée Guimet, vol. XXXVI. 

Essentially a concise introduction to the Daodejing (Tao te King in EFEO transcription).

Spine rebacked, with losses; corner losses to the wrappers, which are tending to detach; internally in pleasing condition.

Rare, but sold as is.

First edition of this ambitious study dedicated to the eminent Orientalist Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, in which the author sets out to examine "l'état et les destinées de l'Asie, d'y suivre la trace des systèmes religieux et d'en indiquer l'enchaînement" (cf. Cordier, Sinica, 70. Barbier I, 305 c. Quérard XI, 101.)

Contemporary full porphyry calf bindings, smooth spines decorated with quadruple gilt fillets and gilt fleurons, gilt ornamental borders at head and foot, olive-green calf lettering- and volume-labels, three with losses at the corners, gilt rolls to the headcaps, covers framed with double gilt fillets, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges, gilt fillets to the board...

First edition illustrated with a large folding map bound at the rear of the first volume and 3 folding tables in the second volume (cf. Kress 5962. Goldsmiths B.20411. INED 1006. Not in Einaudi.)

Contemporary Bradel bindings in full yellow paper boards, smooth spines slightly darkened and decorated with fillets, minor rubbing to the spines, olive morocco lettering-pieces, volume numbers stamped within gilt shields, a few rubbed areas with slight losses to the paper boards, bookplates pasted onto the endpapers, contemporary bindings.

An important work from the geographical, economic, and statistical points of view alike. INED particularly notes, in volume II, the "sixth and seventh sections...

First edition of the French translation, illustrated in the atlas volume with 11 plates and 1 large folding map (cf. Hage Chahine, 720; Chadenat, 4227; Wilson, 35 for the 1835 English edition).

Contemporary Romantic bindings in aubergine half calf, smooth spines decorated with gilt arabesque tooling, gilt rolls at head and foot, marbled-paper boards, and marbled endpapers and pastedowns.

The atlas bound in aubergine half shagreen, smooth spine decorated with gilt Romantic arabesque tooling, gilt rolls at head and foot, marbled-paper boards, and marbled endpapers and pastedowns; a modern binding executed to match the Romantic bindings of the text volumes.

Joints restored, occasional foxing...

First edition illustrated with a large folding map inserted out of text: "Carte de la navigation intérieure d'une grande partie de la Russie européenne et de l'ancienne Pologne… dressée par J.D. Barbié du Bocage".

Contemporary red Russian half morocco, spine with four raised bands ruled in gilt and decorated with double gilt fillets, gilt date at foot, bottle-green morocco lettering-piece, a few minor rubs to spine and boards, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, bookplate mounted on a pastedown.

Small scuffs to the lower edge of a pastedown.

The author, a merchant of Marseilles origin, conceived the plan of establishing an economic alliance between France, Russia and...

Very rare first edition of this major work, complete as issued (the text ends abruptly with the final table, without a table of chapters).

Illustrated with a lithographed portrait frontispiece (Cf. Palau 11 815. Sabin 1377.)

Contemporary half cherry calf over marbled paper boards, smooth spine decorated with gilt fillets, garlands and fleurons; small loss at foot of spine, which is also rubbed; some abrasion to the marbled paper; speckled edges; corners and board edges rubbed.

Only two copies recorded in the CCF (BnF and Institut).

A member of Colombia's Comision corografica from 1850, the writer and publicist Manuel Ancizar Basterra (1812-1882) undertook an extensive journey with the aim of...

First edition of this literary utopia (cf. Ferguson 3133).

Contemporary half dark green shagreen binding, smooth spine tooled with gilt fillets and foliate scrollwork, gilt volume number at foot, with a few minor areas of rubbing; marbled paper boards, blue paper endpapers and pastedowns, a small loss to one corner of a pastedown, corners bumped.

Spine restored.

First and only edition of this apocryphal voyage, presented as the account of a maidservant accompanying her master through an imagined Australia, envisioned as a new nation spared the vices of the Old World.

First edition of this new Histoire générale des voyages, arranged and brought up to date with contemporary discoveries by Baron Charles-Athanase Walckenaer (1771-1852). Published in Paris between 1826 and 1831 in twenty-one octavo volumes, it constitutes the only portion ever completed of a project originally intended to extend to some sixty volumes. The final four volumes were prepared by Jean-Baptiste-Benoît Eyriès. Brunet V, 1041; Quérard X, 472; Gay 299; Hoefer XLVI, 498.

Contemporary half red Russia morocco with corners, spines with five raised bands, boards framed with blind fillets, marbled paper sides, endpapers and pastedowns, top edges gilt, the remaining edges untrimmed. A few...

First edition, uncommon, of this account of a journey through Italy following a thoroughly classical itinerary: Sens, Dijon, Lucerne, Reinthal, Pfeffers, the Grisons, Tyrol, San Bernardino, Locarno, Bellinzona, Lugano, Como, Milan, Pavia, Turin, Genoa, Lucca, Pisa, Naples, Salerno, Caserta, Rome, Florence, Milan, the Simplon Pass, etc.

Small losses and tears to the margins of the covers, some foxing.

The author was clearly determined to preserve his anonymity: not only has his identity never been established, but he also left unsigned the autograph presentation inscription in our copy to the Comtesse Duplessis de Pouzillac, written opposite the title page of the first volume.

First edition, printed in a small number of copies, of this offprint from the Bulletin de la Société géographique de Paris.

Copies recorded in the CCFr only at the BnF, BULAC, and Tarbes libraries.

Half hazel shagreen binding with corners, smooth spine slightly faded with minor rubbing, boards, endpapers and pastedowns in olive-green paper, top edge gilt, original wrappers and spine preserved; modern binding.

The Fourierist Armand-Jules Duval (1813–1870), an influential member of the Société de géographie, was a staunch advocate of the colonisation of Algeria.

He had himself lived in the colony from 1847 to 1862, overseeing the fortunes of an agricultural quasi-phalanstery at Saint-Denis-du-Sig...

Unpublished manuscript logbook kept by a French naval officer, an eyewitness to the celebrated action between the Aréthuse and HMS Amelia (1813), and to the campaigns that accompanied the restoration of French authority in the West Indies.

Unpublished autograph manuscript of 189 pages (the first 31 paginated, the remainder unnumbered), kept by an anonymous French naval officer and covering, without interruption, the period from 25 November 1812 to 4 May 1823.

Contemporary half tan calf, smooth spine decorated with repeated gilt rolls and naval ornaments, burgundy calf lettering-piece, brown paper-covered boards. Spine renewed and restored, occasional waterstaining affecting the greater...

First edition of this vast illustrated undertaking, published in Brussels by the Librairie historique-artistique in 1843-1844, in four octavo volumes. The present copy contains 210 costume plates, hand-coloured and heightened with gum, together with four coloured title vignettes. The number of plates varies considerably from copy to copy; with its 210 plates, all retaining their tissue guards, this is one of the more extensively illustrated examples.

Contemporary half dark blue morocco. Spines with false bands, the compartments decorated with alternating broad and fine rules. Dark blue grained-paper boards. Some rubbing, particularly to the boards. The set remains generally fresh, with a...