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An extremely rare sammelband featuring several foundational works regarding the colonial era in what is today Kenya and Uganda, composed of various publications and ephemeral documents assembled and custom-bound in 1889 by Sir Lewis Pelly, one of the founding directors of the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC), the private company that was charted in 1888 by the British government…

A unique court record book documenting trials at the provincial court in Plateau Province, Nigeria, between 1927 and 1931. Large 4º, 257 unnumbered sheets, printed text on the left-hand side, printed template with entries in black and red ink and annotations in colour pencils on the right-hand side. two inserted sheets with typescript, reverse calf binding with linear tooling in…

Two ephemeral advertisements for the Fisk Jubilee Singers, an early African-American a cappella group that introduced spiritual music originating from enslaved people to audiences worldwide.

Seemingly the only known surviving example of the first printing of the first published work by the first Western-trained Chinese medical doctor, being a report on the operations of the Kum-lee Fow Hospital, a missionary medical institution located in the western suburbs of Canton (Guangzhou) that pioneered many advanced Western treatments in China; Wong Fun, a graduate of the University…

A resplendent and unique presentation piece given to Pieter Meijer, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), being the very rare economic yearbook for the colony for 1867, custom bound in sumptuous full red morocco with elaborate gilt neo-rococo designs and bearing a dedication to the His Excellency; published locally by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Batavia,…

An early and rare German publication on cacti, featuring a handsome hand-coloured frontispiece. Small 8º, copper printed frontispiece with hand colour, X, 98 pp., contemporary simple tan paper binding, bound with contemporary string (little age-toned and stained, tiny chips and holes in white margins, binding with light staining and with abrasions on corners).

The publication contains transcriptions of documents related to the foundation of Kuwait, sourced from the Ottoman archives and published after World War I.    8º, 34 pp., original front cover with lettering, later spine (missing rear cover).  

A remarkable manuscript map of Trieste vividly illustrates the city during its pivotal development into one of the world's largest ports.   Black ink and water colours on paper, 129 x 195 cm (50.8 x 77 inches), contemporarily dissected into 24 segments and mounted on brown linen (minimal staining, but overall good).  

Extremely rare – the earliest comprehensive published account of the ‘Bhamo Expedition’ of 1868, the ambitious official British mission to open what promised to be an exceedingly lucrative trading route between Upper Burma and Yunnan, one of China’s wealthiest yet most politically unstable provinces, written by one of the endeavour’s principals, Captain Alexander Bowers, a seasoned ‘China hand’; the work,…

Highly important and seemingly unrecorded – as best as we are aware the only complete printed cadastral masterplan of the International Settlement of Shanghai in its expanded (post-1899) form, thus including 5 separate maps, respectively showcasing the Central (The Bund), Northern (Hongkou) and Western Districts, while the Eastern District is covered by 2 of the maps; the plans were made…

The very rare, spectacular and complete portfolio of 8 very large format maps and 2 Topographical Cross-Sections from the ‘Ordnance Survey of the Peninsula of Sinai’ (1868-9), the ambitious exploring expedition led by the Royal Engineer captains Charles William Wilson and Henry Spencer Palmer that conducted the first scientific mapping and archaeological reconnaissance of the interior of the Sinai, both to…

Two rare lithographs depicting the funeral ceremony of Don Carlos María Isidro Benito de Borbón y Borbón-Parma, pretender to the Spanish throne, who passed away in exile in Trieste.