Geography

  A fascinating, foundational work on the Brazil’s wild southern frontier during the generation following independence, being an account of Rio Grande do Sul written by Nicolào Dreys, a French merchant who lived in the province from 1818 to 1828, and published in Rio de Janeiro in 1839 during the height of the ‘Ragamuffin War’, a successionist struggle which gripped…

  A highly important and attractive work on the Eighth Xhosa War (1850-3), a critical conflict in which the British scored a crushing defeat upon the Xhosa, so securing permanent dominance over the Eastern Frontier regions of the Cape Colony, a victory secured by the ‘scorched earth’ offensive launched by Governor George Cathcart from the spring of 1852 to the…

[From the Travel through America. The City of Chicago]   An Ottoman translation of Baron Edmond de Mandat-Grancey’s description of Chicago, first published in 1898   8°, 37 pp., later marbled wrappers (slightly stained, otherwise in a good condition).

  A fine example of an important and beautifully produced national atlas of chile, featuring 39 maps predicated upon the best scientific sources, made by Enrique Espinoza, who is credited with revolutionizing the study of geography in Chile, published by the venerable Paris firm of Erhard Frères.   Small 4° (27 x 20.5 cm): 2 pp., 39 maps (5 folding;…

[Tercüme-i Tarih-i Nevâdir-i Çin-i Maçin / Translation of the Stories of History of China and the Greater China]   8°, 70 pp. lithograph, first two pages with gilt margins, later blue cloth boards with brown cloth spine, grey printed endpapers (minor staining overall in a good condition).  

Adolf HAUPT (fl. 1900 – 1933). Tsingdao [Qingdao]: Printed at the Catholic Mission Press, 1927. 8° (19 x 11.5 cm): [13 pp. advertisements, title, preliminaries], 1-48 pp., [16 pp. advertisements on coloured paper], 49-156 pp. (with 82 photographic images imbedded within text), [2 pp.], plus 2 large folding colour lithographed maps on thick paper, bound in original printed boards with…

  A stellar moment of African cartography and inland hydrography, being the first atlas, or accurate, complete large-scale map, of the 1,724 km-long navigable route of the Upper Congo River from Léopoldville (Kinshasa) to Stanleyville, the only natural passage into the heart of Africa, made during World War I for the use of steamer captains by the specialist Belgian colonial…

  8°, 96 pp., advertisement, original illustrated wrappers (slightly stained, a tiny loss of image on the rear wrappers, but otherwise in a good condition).  

  A travelogue to the Holy Land through Egypt by a Croatian professor Krsto Krile, published on the eve of WWI.   8°, XI, 231 pp., interleaved photographs, two folding plates, and three folding maps (Jerusalem, Croatia, the Holy Land), original boards with decoration and lettering, original cloth spine with lettering (hardly noticeable foxing, very light wear to the corners,…

Very Rare – the first broadly accurate and detailed map of the course of the lower Danube River, that flowed 1,400 km from Belgrade to the Black Sea; a colossal 7-sheet work (bound in atlas form) that would measure a course approximately 420 cm (almost 14 feet!) long if joined, based on the first serious attempt to map this vital…

  8°, 184 pp. with black and white illustrations, original illustrated wrappers, later spine (small tears in margins, small patches with loss of text due to glue on three pages replaced with manuscript in pencil, otherwise in a good condition).  

  A very rare and important Arabic language school atlas of Egypt, commissioned by the country’s Education Ministry and Ministry of Finance, emblematic of the country’s emerging national awakening whereby Egyptians gradually regained control over their country’s economy and institutions from the British quasi-colonial regime; in this vein, such cartographic works in the Arabic language, made for the use of…