Veryard, Ellis (1657-1714).

Estimate

1,500 - 2,000 GBP

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Description

An account of divers choice remarks... taken in a journey through the Low-Countries, France, Italy, and part of Spain; with the Isles of Sicily and Malta. As also, a Voyage to the Levant: a description of Candia, Egypt, the Red-Sea, the Desarts of Arabia, Mount-Horeb, and Mount Sinai; the Coasts of Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor; the Hellespont, Propontis, and Constantinople; the Isles of the Carpathian, Egean and Ionian Seas. London: S. Smith and B. Walford, 1701

folio (334 x 197mm.), [11], [1 (blank)], 360, [22 (indices)], [2 (blank)] pp., illustration: 2 woodcut plates, binding: contemporary panelled calf, spine in seven compartments with raised bands gilt, some light spotting, spine and corners somewhat rubbed

Literature

Atabey 1285; Blackmer 1727; not in Cobham-Jeffery, Röhricht, Weber, Tobler or Hilmy

Catalogue Note

first edition. uncommon. Ellis Veryard was a physician who lived in Plymtree, Devon, having studied medicine in Leiden and Utrecht. He set out on his travels in 1682. His account includes keenly observed (and occasionally fantastical) descriptions of Cyprus (pp.327-328), the Holy Land, Egypt, Babylon, Baalbek, Lebanon ("the rocky and more desart parts of Lebanon are full of Lions, Bears, Tygres, Leopards and other ravenous beasts..."), Constantinople, Greece and numerous Greek Islands. Veryard gives a witty and lively assessment of the people he encounters, and of what he considers to be their national characteristics. Pages 315-320 give an account of the practices and history of Islam.