Africa, Middle East and Egypt
Collection of works, 19th century
£819
Auction: 05 February 2025 from 10:00 GMT
Description
Selous, Frederick Courteney. A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa being a Narrative of Nine Years spent amongst the Game of the far Interior of South Africa. London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1881. First edition, 8vo, xvii 455 pp., original green pictorial cloth gilt, half-title, 17 wood-engraved plates including frontispiece (7 of which with descriptive text-leaf not counted in register), 2 lithographic plates, folding map, wood-engravings in text, spotting to half-title and index, occasional light spotting elsewhere, tears to map, rear inner hinge slightly tender [Czech Africa p. 251];
Hoskins, G. A. Travels in Ethiopia, above the Second Cataract of the Nile. London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman, 1835. First edition, 4to, original cloth, 54 lithographic plates on 53 sheets, 4 of which double-page chromolithographs of Egyptian wall-paintings, a few others hand-coloured, folding map, spine rubbed, wear to joints, frontispiece and front free endpaper loose, frontispiece spotted, map split at intersection of folds [Blackmer 832];
Denham, Dixon, & Hugh Clapperton. Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, in the Years 1822, 1823, and 1824. London: John Murray, 1826. First edition, 4to, contemporary calf (covers detached), 36 engraved plates, hand-coloured aquatint, engraved folding map, woodcut vignettes in text, folding map with splits to folds and a few marks;
Layard, Austen H. Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. London: John Murray, 1853. 8vo, contemporary half calf, 16 plates, maps and plans (several folding, the plates including tinted lithographs, folding plan facing p. 67 repaired), frontispiece spotted, occasional spotting elsewhere;
Rich, Claudius James. Narrative of a Journey to the Site of Babylon in 1811, now first published. London: Duncan and Malcolm, 1839. First edition, 8vo, contemporary half calf, half-title, 25 plates including wood-engraved views and lithographic facsimiles of cuneiform tablets (several folding), plate 7 (sketch-map) with old repair, front joint slightly split at head;
and 13 others (26)
Provenance
From the library of the Murrays of Dollerie, Crieff, Perthshire.
Footnote
First editions of Selous's work, 'a true classic of the African sporting field' (Czech), are notably uncommon.