Letters from Buenos Ayres and Chili,

An engaging account of Buenos Aires and Chile between 1805 and 1813. The attractive plates depict inhabitants in local costume, including a 'Lady of Lima in her Wedding Dress' and 'A Cacique in his Dress of Ceremony'. The series of letters were written while the author convalesced St. Dominic in Buenos Aires and then convent of St. Francis in St. Jago.

Following the capture of Buenos Aires by Commodore Sir Hoe Popham in 1806, British interest in South America boomed. Despite the loss of the city the following year back into Argentinean hands, many British tourists and merchants made for the capital: by 1824 over 3,000 Brits lived in Buenos Aires. In 1824 and 1825 a mania for speculation in South America swept Britain following the region's boom after the Napoleonic Wars, with huge investments in corporations and Government bonds. Ackermann sought to capitalise on this growing interest, publishing works and a periodical solely devoted to the subject, until the South American bubble burst in 1840.

First edition; 8vo (22 x 14 cm); 6 hand-coloured aquatint plates including frontispiece, bound without half-title, professional paper repairs to title and frontispiece without loss, couple of marks to lower margin of pl. 2 and 6, a couple discreet ownership inscriptions to title; publisher's cloth, spine lettered in gilt, spine professionally refurbished, a very good copy; xi, 323pp.

Abbey (Travel), 697; Sabin 18746.