Burton, Richard Francis

2 volumes, 8vo. Half-titles, folding map, 2 plates, publisher's advertisements at end of vol. 2. Original pictorial green cloth stamped in gilt, spines gilt-lettered, brown endpapers. Blue cloth slipcase.

W.J. Margarey, ownership inscription dated 1874 on front free endpaper — E.S. Wigg and Son, Adelaide, bookseller's ticket — Franklin Brooke-Hitching (his sale at Sotheby's London, 20 March 2014, lot 218)

Casada 33; Penzer 78; Borba de Moraes 137

FIRST EDITION, BROOKE-HITCHING COPY. Posted as Consul at Santos, Sao Paulo's port, in 1865, Burton sailed to Rio de Janeiro before travelling into the interior and down the Sao Francisco by raft. Lady Burton herself saw the work through publication, writing a revealing preface in which she gives vent to her personal feelings regarding her husband's views on religion and polygamy, begging the ''fair or gentle reader'' to bear in mind that her husband is writing ''from a high moral pedestal".