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VALENTIA, George Annesley, Viscount.
Voyages and Travels
to India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt, in the years 1802, 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806.
Publisher: London, Printed for William Miller, 1809
Stock code: 46982
Price: £3,500 Currency Conversion
First edition, one of 50 large paper copies. "This work contains much information of a novel and important kind... It was read through the press by Mr. Salt, who was Secretary and Draughtsman to Lord Valentia" (Lowndes). Henry Salt supplied all the drawings upon which the plates are based and in the same year, 1809, published a series of hand-coloured aquatints under his own name entitled Twenty-Four Views in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia and Egypt. Valentia's was the first British mission to Abyssinia, sent to conclude an alliance to obtain a port on the Red Sea in case France, under Napoleon, should seize Egypt, and was important in opening Abyssinia to the West.
3 volumes, quarto (300 × 238 mm) original boards with near contemporary sheep reback, red morocco labels to the spines. Half-titles, 3 engraved vignette head-pieces, 69 plates, maps and plans, 11 of them folding, including a 2 large maps of the Red Sea area, "from the Straits of Bab-el-mandeb to Salaka," & "From Salaka to Suez." A little rubbed, hinges repaired, some plates with short splits at the fore-edge, 2 plates torn without loss and repaired, but overall very good.
