First edition of Fraser's Himala Mountains, the finest illustrated work on the Himalayas.

James Baillie Fraser (1783-1856) was the eldest son of a landed Scottish family. He travelled to India and became a merchant in Calcutta in 1814. Whilst in India he studied painting under the tutelage of the eminent artist George Chinnery. He visited the Himalayas in 1815-16 where his brother, William, was the then Political Agent to Major General Martindell. William was appointed to visit local chiefs in those parts of the Himalayas to the north-west of Garhwal and between the rivers Sutlej and Jumna in Bashahr and James went with him. While on this trip, James reputedly became the first European to reach Gangotri, the source of the Ganges.

The russia for this binding came from the Catharina which sailed from St Petersburg with a cargo of reindeer skins, but sank in a storm in Plymouth Sound in December 1786. The bales of leather, which had been tanned in the traditional russian way with willow bark before being curried with birch oil, were buried in the mud of the Sound preserving them for 200 years before their discovery by divers.

First edition; large folio (68 x 54 cm approx.); pictorial aquatint title, 20 fine hand-coloured aquatint plates by Robert Havell & Son after Fraser, captioned below image in grey wash banner; recently bound in full contemporary salvaged russia gilt, a fine copy.

Abbey (Travel), 498; Bobins 248.