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BLOUNT, Henry.
A Voyage into the Levant.
A Breife Relation of a Journey, lately performed by Master H.B. Gentleman, from England by way of Venice, into Dalmatia, Sclavonia, Bosnah, Hungary, Macedonia, Thessaly, Thrace, Rhodes and Egypt, unto Gran Cairo. With particular observations concerning the moderne condition of the Turkes, and other people under that Empire. The second Edition.
Publisher: Printed by I.L. for Andrew Cooke, 1636
Stock code: 72255
Price: £1,750 Currency Conversion
Second edition, in the same year as the first. Blount graduated from Trinity College in 1618, and in 1620 was admitted to Gray's Inn. According to Aubrey he "was pretty wild when young, especially addicted to common wenches." The circular journey recounted here began from Venice in 1634, to where Blount returned eleven months later, having travelled 6,000 miles "down the Adriatic coast … inland into the Balkans … reaching Constantinople and after spending only a few days crossing to Egypt via Rhodes in the Turkish fleet and docking in Alexandria. He visited the great pyramid in Giza, wandered around the Faiyûm … " (ODNB) Returning via Palermo and Naples. His stated intent in making this trip was "Baconian: to gain knowledge by means of personal—'ocular'—experience without the constraints of national and religious history. He travelled alone to the Middle East because he wanted to describe Islam and the world of the Ottomans in an 'empirical rather than religious frame of reference' (MacLean, 'Ottomanism before Orientalism?)." Blounts account was influential and popular, eight editions appeared by 1671, it was translated into German in 1687 and into Dutch in 1707. "The Voyage shows a sharp and iconoclastic mind. 'By your eyes', wrote Bishop Henry King in commendation of the accuracy and detail of the book, 'I here have made my full discoveries; And all your countries so exactly seen, As in the voyage I had sharer been."
Small quarto (178 × 134 mm) Lightly streaked sheep to style, red morocco label to the spine, blind panelling with arabesque corner-pieces to the boards. Engraved title-page device and head-piece. A little rubbed on the spine and joints, head-cap chipped, front hinge slightly cracked, tan-burn to the endpapers, text lightly browned, upper margin shaved a little tight with occasional loss of the rule above the running head, but overall a very good copy.
