HOOKER, Joseph Dalton, Sir (1817-1911). Himalayan Journals; or, Notes of a Naturalist in Bengal, The Sikkim and Nepal Himalayas, The Khasia Mountains, &c. London: John Murray, 1854. 2 volumes, 8vo (231 x 140 mm). 2 folding maps (one with old reinforcement on verso), 12 chromolithographic plates. (Minor pale spotting mostly to prelims and postlims.) Publisher's embossed rust cloth (spines sunned, lower joint vol. I with small split and residue on lower pastedown).FIRST EDITION by the eminent botanist, explorer and mountaineer who had earlier been with Ross in the Antarctic, and was a close confidant of Charles Darwin, to whom this work is dedicated. He was the first naturalist to travel into the Sikkim Himalaya, through mostly unknown territory which had not been reached by an Englishman since Turner's mission to Tibet in 1789. He made the first near complete circuit of Kangchenjunga in 1848-50, and the first to describe it. The maps were made from his own surveys and the illustrations and views are from his own drawings. Abbey Travel 502; DSB VI, 489; Neate H108 ("a classic of Himalayan travel and exploration"); Yakushi (1994) H399a.