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We guarantee the authenticity and completeness of all items (unless otherwise described), and are happy to provide a certificate to this effect. All items can be assumed to be in good condition, with any defects being described in our description. 

Travel

Exciting News

A New Travel Catalogue!
Julian MacKenzie
Travels along the Silk Routes Shapero Rare Books
This route has its origins in the pre-Christian era as a means for China to export silk, precious stones, and other valuables, and later paper and gunpowder, thus changing the cultural and political history of Europe. 
Travels along the Silk Routes Shapero Rare Books

We’ve been very busy over the past few months to the extent that we have been able to set aside enough recent acquisitions for a new Travel & Exploration catalogue. It will play to our strengths with sizeable sections on Africa, the Middle East, Greece and the Ottoman World, and Central Asia, with further sections on Polar exploration and Women travellers.

Richard Burton’s A Mission to Gelele, is one of his more X-rated titles. Full of tales of human sacrifice and drinking human blood from a skull, it is not clear whether Burton participated or not, but it certainly added to the European view of the old kingdom of Dahomey as being a very dangerous place. What I love about the present copy is that it is completely unrestored, which is how you want your Burtons to be, but they seldom are.

Henry Holland’s Travels in the Ionian Islands, 1815, ticks lots of boxes. A doctor, he was travelling in Greece shortly before the War of Independence and met Ali Pasha. What makes this copy special for me is that it comes from the renowned Stoke Rochford library of the antiquary, Christopher Turnor. Copies from this library are usually in superb condition and this copy is no exception. It is beautifully bound and is a feast for the eye.

One of the scarcer books in the catalogue is An authentick and faithful history of that arch-pyrate Tulagee Angria, 1756. It tells us of the capture of Toolaji Angria, the leader of the pirates operating off the Indian coast, who had attacked East India Company (EIC) vessels for over 50 years. The British naturally saw him as a scourge but to Indian eyes it was otherwise, for he stood up to the might of the EIC who often acted little better than pirates themselves.

A reprint edition of Herbert Ponting’s Great White South, 1930, doesn’t at first sight seem very enticing, but what makes this copy special is that Ponting has inscribed this copy to Francis Drake, paymaster, and meteorologist on the Terra Nova expedition. Ponting uses his nickname, ‘Ponco’, showing the close bond between the two men.
Hopefully the catalogue will be out in early November, so please let us know if you would like to receive a copy.
Filed in: All, Travel
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Shapero Rare Books is an internationally renowned dealer in London, specialising in antiquarian & rare books and works on paper, with particular expertise in fine illustrated books from the 15th to the 20th century, travel & voyages, natural history, modern firsts, rare children’s books, guidebooks, Hebraica & Judaica, Eastern European, and Islamica. 

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