[Travel & Exploration] (Thomas, Herbert). A Relation of Some Yeares Travaile, Begunne Anno 1626. Into Afrique and the greater Asia, especially the Territories of the Persian Monarchie: and some parts of the Orientall Indies, and Iles adjacent...

London: Printed by William Stansby, and Jacob Bloome, 1634. First edition. Small folio. (x), 225, (15) pp. Illustrated with an additional engraved title-page by William Marshall, 36 in-text engraved plates, as well as engraved initials, head-pieces, and printer's device on title-page and terminal leaf. Full contemporary speckled brown calf, ruled in blind, boards and extremities rubbed and moderately worn, staining to front and rear boards, loss at foot of spine; circular armorial ink stamp of Sir Walter John Trevelyan, 8th Baronet of Nettlecombe and High Sheriff of Cornwall, on front free endpaper; edges of prelims creased; small closed tear in bottom edge of E4; scattered very light soiling to text. STC 13190; Sabin 31471; Alden & Landis 634/68; STC 13190

A handsome copy of Sir Herbert Thomas's travels, a significant early account of the Middle East and Asia. An historian and courtier to King Charles I, Herbert accompanied Sir Dodmore Cotton on a diplomatic mission to Persia in 1726. Following the latter's death, Herbert and others traveled extensively throughout the region, where he made observations on the people, their customs, as well as the region's animal life and flora and fauna. Upon his return to England in 1630, he compiled his account and published the above first edition. Of note are the engravings of the flying fish and the extinct dodo, as well as the section at the end recounting Welsh King Madoc ab Owain Gwynedd's mythic discovery of America.

This lot is located in Philadelphia.

Provenance

From the collection of Justin G. Schiller