Mendes Pinto, Fernando (1509?-1583).

small folio (276 x 190mm.), [14], 231, 240-326pp., title printed in red and black, illustration: woodcut head-pieces and initials, binding: contemporary calf, sides with blindstamped initials "MLG" (see provenance below), spine in six compartments with raised bands, lacking preliminary and final blank, some stains and light browning, upper corner of title excised very slightly affecting text, 2 other corners cut and other minor marginal wear (not affecting text), final text leaf slightly creased, joints partly split (small loss from upper joint), some wear to binding (including punctures to lower cover)

Mary Le Grice, early ownership inscription on inner board: "Mary Le Grice, Her Booke" and sides blindstamped with initials 'MLG'; presumably a member of the well-known East Anglian family, which, according to the College of Arms, is one of only eighty families who can trace their lineage back to the Norman Conquest. The family were descended from Erard Le Grys, born in 1020 in Normandy, France and who fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. His descendants settled in Norfolk and Suffolk. Variant surnames include Le Grys, Le Gris, Le Grice, Le Greiss, Gryce and Gryse.

Wing M1705; Cordier, Sinica 2069, Indosinica 113, Japonica 39

first edition in english. This work first published in Lisbon in 1614, recounts the journey of Fernando Mendes Pinto, the Portuguese adventurer, trader, envoy, pirate, missionary and mercenary, who set out in 1537 in a fleet commanded by Vasco da Gama's son, to seek his fortune. His twenty-one year odyssey carried him through many adventures: he was thirteen times a captive and sold into slavery seventeen times; he survived shipwrecks, and travelled, fought and traded in China, Tibet, Tartary, Pegu, India, Thailand, Ethiopia, Ormuz and points in between. He reached Japan in 1542 and claims to have been in the first party of Europeans to land there. This is probably the first book in European literature to tell of pirate battles on the seas of the Orient, to describe the wild beasts of the equatorial forests of Asia and to portray the Dalai Lama.