The Collected Library

First edition. Folio, 13 3/8 x 8 5/8 in. (340 x 219 mm). (viii), xv, (i), 442, (2), 60, (8) pp.; with half-title. Title-page printed in red and in black and with an engraved vignette. Illustrated with 32 engraved plates on 29 sheets (including 12 maps), as well as numerous engraved head- and tail-pieces, historiated initials, one engraved sheet of music, and numerous in-text engravings, woodcuts, and diagrams. Contemporary brown calf, rebacked with red and green morocco spine label, boards and extremities worn; book-plate of the City Library Association of Springfield Massachusetts to front paste-down, same library ownership stamp to title-page; prelims foxed with light offsetting, although text and plates generally clean; some scattered tears repaired with cellotape. (Blackmer 1533)

First edition of English cleric Thomas Shaw's travels across North Africa and the Middle East. A major feat of travel literature, praised for its accurate descriptions of the region as well as for the book's design and illustration. Upon taking Holy Orders, Shaw was appointed to the factory of English merchants at Algiers, from where during the 1720s he traveled extensively throughout Egypt, Sinai, Cyprus, Palestine, and Syria. While on his travels he gathered copious amounts of information regarding the region's natural history and antiquities, which formed the basis of the present work.