PREJEVALSKY, Nikolay (1839-1888). Mongolia, the Tangut Country, and the Solitudes of Northern Tibet. Being a Narrative of Three Years' Travel in Eastern High Asia. Translated by E. Delmar Morgan. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876.
2 volumes, 8vo. Photographic frontispiece, folding lithographed map, 12 wood-engraved plates, and numerous illustrations in the text. (Large tear to map near gutter, crudely repaired with blank stamps.) Original pictorial brown cloth stamped in black and gilt, spine lettered in gilt and stamped in black and gilt, Burn & Co. binders' ticket (rubbing to extremities, few tiny stains to covers, vol.1 spine a bit skewed, hinges starting). Provenance: marginal penciling throughout in an unknown hand (editor?).
FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. "Przhevalskii's expeditions, which preceded those of Sven Hedin and the host of later Europeans, for the first time since Marco Polo and his successors defined the basic geography of Central Asia. They had visited places known only by rumour or report and had returned with a mass of meteorological, scientific and biological data... He had discovered the wild population of Bactrian camels as well as what became known as Przewalski's horse and Przewalski's gazelle. In 1887, under the auspices of the Russian Geographical Society, he set out from St Petersburg on a final expedition, his intention being to map the central Tibetan plateau and make one last attempt to reach Lhasa from the direction of Tien Shan. Sadly, having got no further than the Issyk Kul, he contracted typhoid and died" (Howgego, p.58, p.748). Yakushi P-293a.
