Search Results: Travel, Exploration from Georg Schneebeli :: Rare Books & Prints

Atlas to the English edition of the report of the famous voyage around the world by La Pérouse, who - in addition to Bougainville and Cook - contributed decisively to the exploration of the Pacific region. Without the two text volumes.
Description: Contemporary quarter calf with marbled paper boards. Flat spine lettered and decorated in gilt. Quarto: 44 × 28.5 cm; unpag., 1 engr. frontispiece, 1 engr. title page and 67 full-page copper-engraved plates, thereof are: 37 plates and 30 maps (20 fold-outs).
Ref.: Boucher i, p. 149-54; Cox i, 67; Sabin 3896
Condition: Binding a bit scuffed and with a few surface abrasions at edges. Light waterstains to the gutter of first few leaves. Contents occasionally somewhat soiled (more noticeable in the first few leaves), slight tanning at edges. Three small brown spots on plate 29, visible between plates 27-37. Lacking plates 1 (map of the world) and 36 (male and female Partridge of California). Some offsetting from plates. Despite the occasional minor blemish, a… Read More

First German edition with 39 superb engravings in vigorous impressions. Rare German edition.
Description: 3 parts in 1 vol. Contemporary vellum, spine lettered in ink. Quarto: 31 × 20 cm; pp. [4] ll; 206, [1] ll; 209-336; 76, [2] ll; 164, [4] ll. Internally illustrated with a engraved titel page, 39 engravings on 38 plates of which 27 double-page and 5 fold-outs. Additionally 55 text engravings.
Ref.: VD17 7:692863P; SUB Göttingen PPN615812651
Condition: Binding lightly soiled, endpapers lightly worn and text block occasionally lightly stained. Missing the plates 'Keyserthums Sinae Land-Karte', 'Abgötts Vitek oder Ninifo' and 'Der Grund-Rissen von der Mandarynen hoch- und niedrigen Standes Wohnungen und Pallästen'. Else a very good copy.
Notes: Between 1656 and 1664, the Dutch East India Company sent three legations to the imperial court in Beijing. Their economic success was modest, but the travel reports of Jan Nieuhof (Het Gezandtschap, 1665) and Olfert Dapper (1636–1689) from the second and… Read More

Accounts of shipwrecks and other fateful events that happened at sea.
Description: Vol. 1 (of 2), contemp. tree calf, spine gilt in compartments with lettering-piece. Marbled endpapers. Sextodecimo: 17 × 10 cm; [3] ll., 399 pp., [2] ll. 2 engravings.
Condition: Binding somewhat rubbed and creased at corners. Edges and contents somewhat stained.

First edition in French detailing superstition and the cult of witchcraft in India. Translated into French by Thomas La Grue from the Dutch.
Description: Contemprary calf, gilt titles to spine and decoration in compartments between five raised bands. Octavo: 24 × 18 cm; pp. [7] ll., 375. With an engraved frontispiece plate and seven engravings, (five of which are full-page), and one fold-out plate.
Ref.: Graesse: xi, 147
Provenance: Handwritten bookplate of Stanislaj de Guaita and a small bookseller's label of the Librairie Sainte-Marie, Moissac, on the front pastedown.
Condition: Binding scuffed and bumped, front joint starting but firm, capitals with losses. The rear flyleaf removed. Textblock a little shaken, somewhat toned, stained and waterstained throughout. Quire H (pp. 57–66) is missing. Chip to pp. 67 not affecting text, paper repair due to loss of paper in outer margin on pages 357–373, not affecting text. A burned hole with minor text loss in quire Vu. Annotations in a early hand on… Read More

A beautiful historical document with personal notes taken while travelling in Egypt in 1899.
Description: Publisher's brown limp boards, decorations on upper cover in gilt, spine lettered in gilt. Endpapers marbled. Octavo: 18 × 12 cm; pp. xv, 443. Illustrated throughout, 2 maps. All edges marbled.
Provenance: Autograph of Dudley H. [illegible], S.S. Nitocris, Mar: 1899.
Condition: Some rubbing to extremities and slight wear to the spine, internally in generally very good condition.
Notes: Wallis Budge wrote this guidebook on behalf of the tourism company Thomas Cook Ltd., which they gave to every passenger of their Nile arrangements on their tourist steamers at that time. Wallis Budge was an Egyptologist and Orientalist, who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. This copy contains personal travel notes on the rear endpapers. These notes date from 1899, making this copy a fine document of contemporary history.

A nice Victorian travel book of twenty-four original watercolour drawings dated 1898–1902.
Description: Original beige cloth binding, titled on front cover Ilfracombe 1898, Scotland 1901 and Wales 1902. Bookbinder's label on the front paste-down. Obl. octavo: 14 × 24 cm; pp. 24ll., [1 loosely inserted]. 24 watercolour drawings on Whatman's handmade drawing paper.
Provenance: Owner's name written in pencil on the front endpaper: G E Ruffles, Yooven Hill Cottage, Felixstowe, Suffolk.
Condition: Slight bow to front board, slightly soiled and showing some marks. Of the original 30 sheets of the sketchbook, 24 sheets with 23 drawings have been preserved. The loosely inserted watercolour drawing was painted on a different watercolour paper. The drawings, as well as the binding in very good condition.
Notes: This is a fine example of a travel journal from a period when people still recorded their impressions of their journeys by painting with brushes and watercolours. The watercolours by G.E. Ruffles of… Read More

First edition of Louis Antoine de Bougainville's account of his famous circumnavigation between 1766 and 1769.
Description: Near contemp. green and brown morocco, separated with gilt fillet; spine with 4 raised bands decorated with gilt fillets; gilt titling on spine. Brown marbled endpapers. Quarto: 27 × 20 cm; [4] ll., 417, [3] pp. With 20 maps (17 fold-outs, incl. the large world map) and 3 engraved plates.
Ref.: Brunet i, 1167; Hill p.31; Sabin ii, 6864
Condition: Boards somewhat rubbed and bumped. Pages slightly yellowed with age, occasional light mainly marginal spotting, some maps slightly tanned.
Notes: French Navy admiral and diplomat Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811) was commissioned by Louis XV in 1766 to circle the Earth in a voyage of exploration with the frigates La Boudeuse and L'Etoile. The purpose of this expedition was to explore the Pacific, especially the Australian coast and New Guinea, to examine the geographical and ecological conditions for economic benefit and… Read More