History, Travel, Exploration Specialist Selections

Arthur Dobbs

Dobbs, Arthur | A scarce work, advocating for the continued search for a Northwest Passage

John Thomson

(China) — John Thomson | One of the most extensive photobooks of China in the nineteenth century

John F. Kennedy

A <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a>, first printing of Profiles In Courage by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=John+F.+Kennedy&amp;pfilters.dateRange=upcoming" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">John F. Kennedy</a>, <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">inscribed</a> to Lem Billings.<ul><li>John F. Kennedy (American).</li><li>New York:&nbsp;Harper &amp; Brothers,&nbsp;1956.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>xix, [2], 266 pages, plus [8] pages of captioned images.</li><li>Inscribed in black ink on front flyleaf by John F. Kennedy: "To Lem / my "oldest" friend / John Kennedy", with bookplate on front pastedown of K. LeMoyne Billings.</li><li>In black buckram quarter binding with blue cloth boards, with gilt lettering to spine, jacket is beige and blue with red, white, and blue lettering, additionally, jacket is wrapped in an archival mylar sleeve, price uncut: "$3.50." </li></ul> This is an incredible association copy, evidencing the close and enduring relationship between Kennedy and Billings.

Profiles In Courage | First Edition, Inscribed to Lem Billings

Martin Luther King, Jr.

An undocumented <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first printing</a> of The Riverside Church Speech by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Martin%20Luther%20King%20Jr&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Martin Luther King Jr</a>.<ul><li>Martin Luther King Jr. (American).</li><li>Later titled Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence.</li><li>n.p.:&nbsp;n.p,&nbsp;[1967].</li><li>8 pages.</li><li>Printed rectos only.</li><li>Top stapled self-wrappers.</li></ul> Previously unrecorded first printing of one of King's most important speeches: his anti-war address at The Riverside Church, delivered exactly one year to the day before his assassination. "If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood." King's Riverside Church Speech (later titled "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence," but here untitled) was the civil rights leader's first sustained and major public statement regarding the Vietnam War. Before a crowd of more than 3000, King called for not only an end to the war, but explicitly linked the anti-war movement to the larger movements for civil rights and economic justice: "Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem." This edition is unknown and unrecorded. It is not mentioned in the major King bibliographies. The introductory paragraph ("The following is the exclusive and authorized publication of the address [...] sponsored by Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam") suggests it was likely printed either by that group or King's camp. Such a printing could have been issued for members not in attendance, for press distribution at or immediately following the event, or simply to secure copyright. (The text also ends with a copyright notice by King, dated 1967.) This version differs in a number of significant ways from final published versions that appeared later. Some of these differences are accounted for by this printing's "slightly condensed" version. Others, however, clearly predate King's later revisions and finalizations which, along with the lack of title on this edition, all clearly mark the text as an early version, contemporaneous or nearly so with the event itself — and almost certainly preceding the earliest (also very rare) reprints undertaken by a number of California groups (where Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam were based, and all under the title "Beyond Vietnam") in the subsequent months. Indeed, the ditto'd presentation strongly suggests a smaller, more immediate circulation. The speech was widely criticized at the time. In the following days, more than 150 newspapers around the country condemned King, and in the aftermath of the address President Johnson dis-invited King from the White House, a rift in their relationship from which they never recovered. Among Black leaders the reception was also decidedly mixed, with many believing King's focus on the war distracted from more pressing concerns. As journalist Tavis Smiley, who produced a documentary on the speech, explained: "it was the most controversial speech he ever gave. It was the speech he labored over the most [and] got Martin King in more trouble than anything he had ever seen or done." Nevertheless, its reputation has only grown in the ensuing years. James Bevel considered it King's greatest speech, and King's intersectional understanding has been increasingly recognized as prescient. A rare and revealing document from one of King's most enduring public addresses.

The Riverside Church Speech: "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence"

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">First edition</a>, first printing of The <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Encyclopaedia%20Britannica&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Encyclopaedia Britannica</a>.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3 volumes.</li><li>Edited by William Smellie (Scottish).</li><li>Engravings by Andrew Bell.</li><li>Printed by Colin Macfarquhar.</li><li>Encyclopaedia Britannica; or, a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences compiled upon a New Plan. In which the Different Sciences and Arts are digested into Distinct Treatises or Systems; and the Various Technical Terms, etc. are explained as they occur in the order of the Alphabet.</li><li>Edinburgh: Printed for A. Bell and C. Macfarquhar, 1771.</li><li>Quarto in half-sheets.</li><li>Half-title to each volume, 159 engraved plates (of 160, lacking plate 112 in 'Midwifery' section').</li><li>viii, 586, [10], 587-697; [4] 1009, [3]; [4], 280, 283-678, 879-953, [1]pp.</li><li>Contemporary calf-backed glazed blue paper boards,&nbsp;</li></ul> The first edition of 'the most famous of all encyclopaedias in the English language' (PMM). A landmark Enlightenment text, the Britannica was the brainchild of the Edinburgh-based bookseller and printer, Colin Macfarquhar, and the engraver Andrew Bell. At the time, the city was arguably the intellectual center of Britain, host to many of the nation's leading thinkers from David Hume to Adam Smith, and the gathering place of discussion clubs like The Select Society and The Poker Club where members met to debate advances in the arts and sciences. Macfarquhar and Bell conceived of the Britannica as a conservative reaction to the French Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot (published 1751 to 1766), which was widely viewed as heretical, but the key initiative that set the Britannica apart from other earlier encyclopaedias was its layout. Related topics were to be grouped together into longer essays, then organized alphabetically. Previously technical terms had been listed generally in alphabetical order, an approach that the Britannica derided as 'dismembering the sciences' (Preface). The 28-year-old press-corrector William Smellie was employed to provide the text. The result was originally issued in 100 parts (called 'numbers' and equivalent to thick pamphlets), which were later bound into three volumes. The first number appeared on December 6, 1768 in Edinburgh, priced 6d or 8d on finer paper, with the last issued in 1771. With two of the three midwifery plates depicting childbirth in clinical detail that so shocked King George III that he commanded that the pages be ripped from every copy. These plates are consequently rarely found (see Kogan, The Great EB: The Story Of The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1958, p.13). The other plates include human anatomy, animals and other natural history subjects, scientific instruments and industrial apparatus, geometrical propositions, and miscellaneous subjects ranging from types of cannon to specimens of shorthand; there are also several plates of music score and a small number of maps. Sets in any state of completeness are rare.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Photographs&amp;Book%20Subject=Photography" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Photographs</a> of the Indian Tour of Archduke <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Photographs&amp;Book%20Subject=Photography&amp;query=Franz%20Ferdinand&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Franz Ferdinand</a> of Austria, January to March 1893.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 2 volumes.</li><li>Photographers:&nbsp;Eduard Hodek, Lala Deen Dayal.</li><li>193 original albumen prints, ranging in size, mounted on card, most captioned in ink in English in a fin-de-siècle Vienna hand.</li><li>Approximately 60 with small printed captions mounted to boards.</li><li>8 photographs untitled.</li><li>Oblong quarto.</li><li>Housed in two contemporary morocco backed cases stamped in gilt “Indien” on spine and upper covers, with third box to match.</li></ul> Group of 193 original albumen print photographs documenting the Indian portion of the world tour of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand of Austria (1863-1914). This official voyage of the Archduke, lasting from December 1892 to October 1893, had explicit diplomatic, ethnographic, and scientific aims, as well as an unspoken goal of permitting the Archduke to recover his health after a diagnosis of tuberculosis. The royal party traveled aboard the imperial cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth, the most modern vessel of the Austrian fleet. They spent two weeks in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) before arriving in India in mid-January 1893. The party spent two-and-a-half months in India before touring Nepal, returning briefly to Calcutta to embark for Singapore at the end of March. The world tour continued with visits in Australia, the Pacific Islands, Japan, Canada, and the American West, before the Archduke sailed from New York to Le Havre. The Archduke’s stay in India included diplomatic engagements, military reviews, and a formal visit to the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, who was in late Victorian times the richest man in the world. The Archduke was put up in the Nizam’s Bashir Bagh palace. The Archduke also spent considerable time hunting, hawking, pigsticking, bagging some 20 tigers, and leopard, antelope, sambhur, black buck, and just about every other beast of the chase (in Ceylon he had hunted elephant). Franz-Ferdinand was a devoted hunter, whose lifetime game bag exceeded 200,000 animals; on the world tour, his entourage included a huntsman and his taxidemist, Eduard Hodek (1858–1929), who was also the Archduke’s photographer and boon companion. The itinerary of the Archduke’s travels permits the close dating of many of the photographs and events of the trip. (A detailed list of the photographs is available.) An exhibition in Vienna in 1894 publicized the collections made by the Archduke during his world travels, and his diary was published as Tagebuch meiner Reise um die Erde, in two volumes, 1895-6. Upon the death of his father in 1896, Franz-Ferdinand became the heir to the Austrian throne. His assassination at Sarajevo in 1914 proved the spark that sent Europe and the world into war. The photographs document a wide range of subjects, both formal and informal, including views of the Archduke's activities, grand receptions by the Nizam of Hyderabad, military reviews, sporting and equestrian events, topographical vistas, palace scenes, as well as ethnographic and hunting images, including substantial game bags. Many of the formal photographs of events in Hyderabad were taken by Lala Deen Dayal (1844-1905), noted court photographer to the Nizam, and the first Indian photographer to gain international recognition for his work as a pioneer of photography in India (only a few bear his studio stamp; but the images are identified in Höfer). Some of the views of and around Calcutta are from Samuel Bourne or Bourne and Shepherd. A spectacular visual record of 1890s India, the opulence of the court of Hyderabad, and sporting episodes in the life of Franz-Ferdinand.

Photographs of the Indian Tour of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria

Charles Darwin

A true first issue, <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book/first-edition?locale=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first edition</a> of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=charles%20darwin&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Darwin</a>'s The Descent of Man.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 2 volumes.</li><li>Charles Darwin (English).</li><li>London: John Murray, 1871.</li><li>With "transmitted" the first word on p. 297 in the first volume.</li><li>In the second, the printer's note on the verso of the half-title, errata on title verso, and the postscript leaf after p. viii.</li><li>The first issue had a print-run of just 2,500 copies.</li></ul> Charles Darwin expands on his theory of evolution, focusing on human origins and the role of sexual selection. In this groundbreaking work, Darwin argues that humans share a common ancestor with other animals, particularly apes, emphasizing the continuity between humans and the rest of the natural world. He explores how natural selection and sexual selection have shaped human physical and behavioral traits, including differences between sexes and races. Darwin also discusses the development of moral sense, intellect, and social behavior, suggesting that these too evolved gradually. The book was controversial, challenging religious and scientific views of the time by placing humans firmly within the framework of evolutionary biology. The Descent of Man not only deepened public understanding of human evolution but also laid the foundation for later studies in anthropology, psychology, and evolutionary theory, making it a landmark in scientific literature and is claimed to be such by Sigmund Freud, "One of the ten most significant books ever written". [ref: 20642 ] £15,000

The Descent of Man (First Edition, First Issue)

Jacques Barraband

Watercolors <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Type=Signed%2520and%2520Inscribed" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">signed</a> by Jacques Barraband for the <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=Description%20de%20L%27Egypte&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Description de L'Egypte</a>.&nbsp;<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3.</li><li>Jacques Barraband (French, 1768-1809).</li><li>[L'aigle criard; L'aigle criard (jeune); L'élanoide blanc / The Greater Spotted Eagle; The Greater Spotted Eagle (young); White swallow-tailed kite).</li><li>Circa 1801.</li><li>Watercolors with gouache highlights on the pencil line.</li><li>These three watercolors are plate numbers one and two in vol. I, Zoologie.</li><li>2 of the 3 watercolors described here are signed: 1 is unsigned as it was part of the other signed plate.</li><li>Each is presented framed.</li></ul> Jacques Barraband (1767-1809) was one of the finest ornithological artists of his time. The son of a weaver at the Aubusson Factory, he is first mentioned as a pupil of Joseph Malaine (1745-1809), the eminent flower painter, and is known to have worked for both the Gobelin Factory and the porcelain factory of Sèvres. These watercolors are excellent examples of Barraband's remarkable talent and meticulous detail when it came to depicting plumage and color. These watercolors were in fact intended to illustrate the System of Birds of Egypt and Syria written by the zoologist Marie-Jules César Lelorme de Savigny (1777-1851) and published in 1809. This text was itself part of Volume I of the Natural History of the Description of Egypt, or Collection of observations and research that were made in Egypt during the expedition of the French army, published by the orders of his majesty the Emperor Napoleon the Great. This work, which consisted of 9 volumes of texts and 11 volumes of plates, was the fruit of the important scientific expedition that accompanied Napoleon's Egyptian campaign which was launched in April 1798. The Description de l'Egypte work aimed to highlight the greatness of Egypt, which at the time was extremely popular in Europe. In order to produce the most complete vision of Egypt, as well as the antiquities and architecture, the fauna and flora were also described with contributions by scholars such as Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, whose texts Barraband also illustrates. In total, the artist contributed 44 plates of birds to the Description de l'Egypt. His drawings were then engraved for Savigny were engraved by Louis Bouquet. The richness and quality of Barraband's work was recognized as early as 1804, when he was awarded a gold medal for his illustrations for the Description de l'Egypt and Levaillant's Natural History.

Signed Watercolors for the Description de L'Egypte

Pierre-Joseph Redouté

A group of Amaryllis <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Prints%2520and%2520colour%2520plate" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">plates</a> by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Prints%2520and%2520colour%2520plate&amp;query=Pierre-Joseph%20Redout%C3%A9&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pierre-Joseph Redouté</a>.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 8.</li><li>Pierre-Joseph Redouté (French).&nbsp;</li><li>Paris: Chez L’Auteur,&nbsp;1802-16.</li><li>Printed in colors and finished by hand.&nbsp;</li><li>Each is presented framed.</li></ul>&nbsp;Redoute was at the height of his powers during the publication of Les Liliacees. It is easily the equal in accomplishment of its more popular successor, Les Roses. The work is broader than its title implies, including as it does petaloid monocotyledons in general belonging, for example to Commelinaceae, Bromeliaceae, Liliaceae. At this time, he had as patron and sponsor Josephine Bonaparte, who, on acquiring Malmaison and establishing a superb garden of rare plants there, required an artist of outstanding talent to record them.

Amaryllis Plates

Pierre Jean François Turpin | Pierre-Antoine Poiteau

<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?Book%20Subject=Prints%2520and%2520colour%2520plate" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Plates</a> from 'One of the finest and rarest books on fruit,' by <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?Book%20Subject=Prints%2520and%2520colour%2520plate&amp;query=Pierre%20Jean%20Fran%C3%A7ois%20Turpin&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pierre Jean François Turpin</a> and <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?Book%20Subject=Prints%2520and%2520colour%2520plate&amp;query=Pierre%20Antoine%20Poiteau&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Pierre Antoine Poiteau</a>.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 4.</li><li>Pierre Jean François Turpin (French).</li><li>Pierre Antoine Poiteau (French).</li><li>Traité des arbres Fruitiers.</li><li>Paris: H. Perronneau for T. Delachausée, 1807-1835.</li><li>Stipple-engraved plates printed in colors and finished by hand.</li><li>Each is presented framed.</li></ul>&nbsp;This series takes its title from Duhamel's Traité of 1768, it is an independent work and was intended as Poiteau and Turpin's homage to the earlier work. A team of over twenty engravers was involved. The color printing was by Langlois, the great French color-printer who supervised much of Redouté's work.

Traité Des Arbres Fruitier Plates

Jean-Théodore Descourtilz

A&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&amp;-manuscripts/book?locale=en&amp;Book%20Subject=Prints%2520and%2520colour%2520plate" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">colored plate</a>&nbsp;of birds by Jean-Théodore Descourtilz.<ul><li>Jean-Théodore Descourtilz (French).</li><li>From&nbsp;Ornithologie Bresilienne ou Histoire des Oiseaux du Brésil, remarquables par leur plumage, leur chant ou leurs habitudes.</li><li>Rio de Janeiro: Waterlow and Sons; London for Thomas Reeves, circa 1852-1856.</li><li>Birds depicted: Phibalura Flavirostris, Querula Rubricollis, Turdus Orpheus, Turdus Flavipes and Turdus Brasiliensis.</li><li>Chromolithgraph plate printed in color and finished by hand.&nbsp;</li><li>This work is presented unframed.</li></ul> Descourtilz worked for the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro. He was the son of French adventurer, botanist and naturalist Michel Etienne Descourtilz. The only other work that Descourtilz was known to have illustrated was his father's work&nbsp;Flore Pittoresque et Médicale des Antilles.

Ornithologie Bresilienne Birds Plate

Thomas Pennant

A finely bound copy Zoologia Britannica.<ul><li>Thomas Pennant (English).</li><li>Etched by P. Mazell after P. Paillou and others.</li><li>Zoologia Britannica tabvlis aeneis CXXXII illvstrata.</li><li>Augsburg: Johan Jacob Haid und Sohn, 1771.</li><li>Large folio.</li><li>132 hand-colored etched plates (11 of mammals, 121 of birds).</li><li>Title and text in Latin and German.</li><li>Uncut in contemporary calf-backed marbled boards.</li></ul>&nbsp;The first colored illustrations of birds in a book which attempted to list and portray all of the British species, many of them life-size. The birds are divided into land birds and water birds, and under each species some synonyms and references to the literature are given, to which are added a brief description and remarks on the habit of the bird. The English edition was published 1761-1766.

Zoologia Britannica

An album of watercolors of flowers, fruit and silkworms.&nbsp;<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3 volumes.</li><li>China: Circa 1800.</li><li>Folio.</li><li>244 mounted watercolors of flowers, fruit, birds and silkworms on Chinese paper.</li><li>Nineteenth-century russia gilt, gilt armorial of George Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blandford (later 5th Duke of Marlborough).</li></ul> A sumptuous collection of mounted watercolors depicting Chinese silkworm cultivation, birds (including parrots), Asian fruits and multiple species of flowers; the work of exceptionally fine draftsmanship from a Chinese school. Stylistic variety suggests a number of hands. The Chinese characters on the painting of silkworms read Quan Yuan Hao Jian Bo, meaning a shop (the first three characters) that sells silk foil (the last two characters). The spines of two volumes are labeled ‘Flowers’, and the third is labelled ‘Silk Worms, Fruits &amp;c’. From the library of George Spencer-Churchill, fifth Duke of Marlborough (1766-1840). The armorial design on the covers exhibit the coronet of a marquess indicating that the albums were bound whilst the Duke was Marquess of Blanford. He had a famed library at Whiteknights Park, near Reading, which was sold in 1819 due to financial difficulties exacerbated by his extravagant lifestyle. At Whiteknights the Duke had established the gardens as some of the most renowned in England at the time, richly described by Barbara Hofland in A Descriptive Account of the Mansion and Gardens of White-Knights, 1819. They featured a folly of a ruined Gothic chapel, exotic botanicals imported from China and India and a Chinese temple. He was a passionate botanist, and much of his library reflected this love for natural history, this rare collection of watercolors being no exception. Lord Macartney’s Embassy to China in 1793, saw the opening up of the Imperial lands to the West, so it is likely that these drawings were produced in the last decade of the eighteenth or the first decade of the nineteenth century.

Album Of Watercolors Of Flowers, Fruit And Silkworms

Captain James Cook

A first edition copy of A Second Voyage Round The World.<ul><li>James Cook (English).</li><li>A Second Voyage round the world, in the Years MDCCLXXII, LXXIII, LXXIV, LXXV.&nbsp;By James Cook, Esq. Commander of His Majesty’s Bark, the Resolution.&nbsp;Undertaken by Order of the King, and encouraged by a Parliamentary Grant of Four Thousand Pounds.&nbsp;Drawn up from Authentic Papers.&nbsp;</li><li>London:&nbsp;Printed for the Editor: Sold by J. Almon, opposite Burlington-House, Picadilly; And Fletcher &amp; Hodson, Cambridge,&nbsp;1776.&nbsp;</li><li>Quarto.</li><li>102 pages.</li><li>Pages uncut in original boards, neatly rebacked to style.</li><li>Presented in a modern blue cloth box, red morocco label.&nbsp;</li></ul> The rarest of all the surreptitious accounts of Cook’s voyages, issued with a title phrased to mislead the public into believing it to be Cook’s own account, it was initially accepted as an authentic account but the book was quickly exposed and denounced. Following the return of the Third Voyage with news of Cook’s death in 1780 and the subsequent heightened public interest in Cook, the original title-leaf was cancelled and replaced by a rephrased title-page with a new date, now attributing authorship to ‘An Officer on Board’. This ploy seems also to have been unsuccessful – the public was interested in the Third Voyage – and, consequently, that second issue is as rare as the first. Beaglehole remarks that ’it recounts a few incidents, not otherwise known, which do not seem out of key with the voyage as a whole’, but goes on to say that ‘the rest is so palpably fake, and in the most sensational terms, that it must be regarded as original invention – on the basis, perhaps, of a reading of Marra or conversation with a stray sailor...’. Georg Forster declared that it was the work of a Cambridge undergraduate and subsequent opinion has tended to echo contemporary sentiment. Nevertheless, Renard ventures that the account derives ‘from the journal of one of the officers on board’, while it has even been suggested that the journal of Lieutenant Pickersgill may have been the source.&nbsp;

A Second Voyage Round The World

Karl Marx

A first edition set of Das Kapital.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 4 volumes.</li><li>Karl Marx (German).</li><li>Das Kapital. Buch I: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals.; Buch II: Der Cirkulationsprocess des Kapitals; Buch III: Der Gesammtprocess der kapitalistischen Produktion Kapitel I bis XXVIII; Buch III: Der Gesammtprocess der kapitalistischen Produktion Kapitel XXIX bis LII.</li><li>Hamburg: Otto Meisner, 1867, 1885, 1894.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Text in German.</li><li>Bound in modern brown half morocco gilt over marbled boards.</li></ul>&nbsp;‘The history of the twentieth century is Marx’s legacy. Stalin, Mao, Che, Castro - the icons and monsters of the modern age have all presented themselves as his heirs. Whether he would recognise them as such is quite another matter [...] Nevertheless, writing one hundred years of his death half the world’s population was ruled by governments that professed Marxism to be their guiding faith. His ideas have transformed the study of economics, history, geography, sociology and literature. Not since Jesus Christ has an obscure pauper inspired such global devotion - or been so calamitously misinterpreted’ (Francis Wheen, in his Introduction to Karl Marx, 1999). Marx’s masterpiece was the summation of over twenty years research in the reading rooms of the British Museum, and followed on from his earlier work Zur Kritik der Politisches Oekonomie, printed in 1859. It is rarely found complete, as here, since the last part was published more than 25 years after the first volume - and 11 years after his death; only the first volume appeared in Marx’s lifetime. The first part was edited by Marx himself, while Friedrich Engels (1820-95) edited all others, until one year before his death. Interestingly the publisher Otto Meissner remained responsible for the entire publication.

Das Kapital

Gerard Jollain

A 17th century prospect of Lisbon.<ul><li>Gerard Jollain (French).</li><li>Lisbone.</li><li>Paris: circa 1650. </li><li>Colored.</li><li>This work is presented unframed.</li></ul> A French prospect of Lisbon from the Tagus, with the landmarks named in the plate and the foreground filled with the merchant ships that gave the city its wealth. Underneath is a short description in Latin and French.

French Map Of Lisbon

Randolph S. Churchill | Martin Gilbert

Inscribed UK first editions, and first printings of the Life Of <a href="https://www.sothebys.com/en/search?query=winston%20churchill&amp;tab=objects&amp;sortBy=bsp_dotcom_prod_en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Winston S. Churchill</a>.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 8 volumes.</li><li>Randolph S. Churchill (English).</li><li>Martin Gilbert (English).</li><li>Life Of Winston S. Churchill [youth 1874-1900, Young Statesman 1901-1914, Volume III 1914-1916, Volume IV 1917-1922, Volume V 1922-1939, Finest Hour 1939-1941, Road To Victory 1941-1945, Never Despair 1945-1965.</li><li>London:&nbsp;Heinemann,&nbsp;1966-1988.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Volumes 1 and 2 signed by Randolph Churchill, Volumes 3-8 signed by Martin Gilbert.</li><li>Volume 1 is inscribed stating "Inscribed by" signed by Randolph S. Churchill on half-title page.</li><li>Volume 2 is inscribed stating "Bobby from" signed Randolph on half-title page, dated "6 Sep 67 -".</li><li>Volumes, 3, 7, and 8 are signed flat by Martin Gilbert on title pages.</li><li>Volumes 4 and 5 are signed flat by Martin Gilbert on front end-page.</li><li>Volume 6 is inscribed stating "Inscribed by the author, to R. G. McLeod with all good wishes -" signed Martin Gilbert on front end-page, dated "15th July 1983". Volume 1 contains a frontispiece black and white photo captioned "Second Lieutenant Winston S. Churchill 4th Hussars 1895" and a thin paper family tree between page 608 and rear end-page.</li><li>Volume 2 contains a frontispiece with a black and white photo captioned "Winston Spencer Churchill in 1904".</li><li>Volume 3 contains a frontispiece with a black and white photo captioned "Churchill in April 1916, when Lieutenant-Colonel, commanding the 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers.</li><li>Volume 4 contains a frontispiece black and white photo captioned "Churchill at Lille, 28 October 1918".</li><li>Volume 5 contains a frontispiece black and white photo captioned "Churchill in 1938".</li><li>Volume 1 has a dark blue spine with white, light blue, and red lettering.</li><li>Volume 2 has a dark green spine with white, light blue, and red lettering.</li><li>Volume 3 has a purple spine with white, grey, ad brown lettering.</li><li>Volume 4 has a brick red spine with white, blue-grey, and gold lettering.</li><li>Volume 5 has a dark green spine with white, light grey, and brown-orange lettering.</li><li>Volumes 6, 7, and 8 have a black spine with white lettering.</li><li>Dust jackets are all wrapped in mylar coverings.</li></ul>

Life Of Winston S. Churchill

Henry C. Beck

A 'Double Crown' poster map of the Tube by Beck.<ul><li>Henry C. Beck (English).</li><li>London: Waterlow &amp; Sons, 1935.</li><li>Color lithographic map.</li><li>Laid on canvas.</li><li>This work is presented unframed.</li></ul>

London Transport Map

Richard F. Burton

A finely bound, first edition copy of Burton's Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 3 volumes.</li><li>Richard F. Burton (English).</li><li>London:&nbsp;Longman, Brown, Green &amp; Longmans,&nbsp;1855-56.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>With folding engraved map, 13 plates (5 color and 8 tinted), and 8 plans (2 folding, 5 in text).</li><li>Bound in brown half-calf gilt by Morrell, morocco lettering pieces, marbled endpapers, a.e.g.</li></ul> "In 1852 Burton proposed to the Royal Geographical Society that he make the hajj, or pilgrimage, to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Forbidden to non-Muslims, less than half a dozen Europeans were known to have visited them and lived, and of those only the Swiss explorer J. L. Burckhardt had left a detailed account. Burton intended to make the pilgrimage in complete disguise as a Muslim native of the Middle East ... an exploit of linguistic and cultural virtuosity which carried considerable risk for its perpetrator ...Burton first travelled to Egypt, where he ... modified his former persona to become Sheikh Abdullah, a wandering Sufi dervish and practitioner of medicine. So successful was he in the latter role that he soon developed a thriving practice ... After the fasting month of Ramadan he proceeded by camel to Suez, whence a tumultuous voyage on a pilgrim boat took him to the Arabian port of Yanbu' al-Bahr. He then travelled by caravan to Medina, arriving on 25 July 1853. There he remained for some weeks as he explored the city, visiting the Prophet's tomb and venturing to nearby sites such as the battlefield at Uhud. On 31 August he departed Medina with the Damascus caravan and reached Mecca early on 11 September 1853. Later that morning he proceeded to the Great Mosque and stood before the Kaaba. During the several days that Burton spent in Mecca, he performed the associated rites of the pilgrimage such as circumambulating the Kaaba, drinking the Zemzem water, and stoning the devil at Mount Arafat. All the while, as at Medina, he secretly made the detailed notes that enabled his resulting book to surpass all preceding Western accounts of the holy cities ... A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah &amp; Meccah made Burton famous and became a classic of travel literature" (ODNB).

Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah

Alexis de Tocqueville

A first English language edition of de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 2 volumes.</li><li>Alexis de Tocqueville (French, 1805-1859)</li><li>Translated by Henry Reeve.</li><li>London:&nbsp;Saunders and Otley,&nbsp;1835.&nbsp;</li><li>Octavos.</li><li>With hand-colored foldout map in volume 2.&nbsp;</li><li>Both volumes with one leaf of ads in rear.</li><li>Bound in contemporary half brown leather with marbled paper boards, morocco labels with gilt lettering to spines.</li></ul>

Democracy in America

Robert Morden | Philip Lea

A Dutch copy of Morden and Lea's map, first published in 1690, extending from Hyde Park clockwise to Marylebone, Islington, Hackney, Stepney, Limehouse, Southwark and Lambeth, with many of the important buildings and monuments shown as elevations.<ul><li>Robert Morden (English).</li><li>Philip Lea (English).</li><li>This Actual Survey of London, Westminster &amp; Southwark Is humbly dedicated to ye L.d Mayor &amp; Court of Aldermen.</li><li>Amsterdam: Jean Covens &amp; Cornelis Mortier, circa 1750.</li><li>The map has been updated with the developments around Grosvenor Square and Cavendish Square, and Westminster Bridge, approved 1736 and opened 1750, as shown.</li><li>Under the map are extensive numbered tables corresponding with numbers on the map and detailing Public Offices, Wards, Halls and Companies, Markets, Inns of Court and Chancery, Prisons, Palaces, Public Buildings, Hospitals and Parishes, un-updated.</li><li>Two sheets conjoined.</li><li>This work is presented unframed.</li></ul>

Dutch Map of London

Henri Abraham Chatelain

A colorful double-hemisphere world map surrounded by tables.<ul><li>Henri Abraham Chatelain (Dutch).</li><li>Nouveau Mappemonde ou Globe Terréstre.</li><li>Amsterdam: 1718.</li><li>Two sheets conjoined.</li><li>Unframed.</li></ul> Published over fifty years before Captain Cook's first circumnavigation, Australia and New Zealand only have partial outlines. To the north of Japan, the "island of Yedo" (here "Yeco") has hatched lines suggesting it might be part of mainland Asia.

Dutch Double-Hemisphere World Map

Frederick Douglass

First edition of Douglass' autobiography.<ul><li>Frederick Douglass (American).</li><li>Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.</li><li>Boston:&nbsp;Anti-Slavery Office,&nbsp;1845.&nbsp;</li><li>xvi, 125 pages.&nbsp;</li><li>Bound in publisher's brown cloth with lettering in gilt and stamping in blind.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]

Inscribed second-edition presentation copy of Symbolic Logic.<ul><li>Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (English).</li><li>Symbolic Logic. Part I Elementary.</li><li>London: Macmillan &amp; Co., 1896.</li><li>Inscribed by Dodgson on the half-title "D. G. Ritchie, from the Author. June 13, 1896."</li><li>Bound in the publisher's original black lettered red cloth.</li></ul>

Symbolic Logic

Alexander Exquemelin

First edition in English of Exquemelin's illustrated history of famous pirates, the central primary source on the subject during its most famous era, with the continuation by Ringrose.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 2.</li><li>Alexander Exquemelin (French).</li><li>Continuation by Basil Ringrose (English).</li><li>Bucaniers of America: Or, a true account of the Most remarkable Assaults Committed of the late years upon the Coasts of The West Indies, By the Bucaniers of Jamaica and Tortuga, Both English and French [...]&nbsp;Written originally in Dutch, by John Esquemeling.</li><li>London:&nbsp;William Crooke,&nbsp;1684; 1685.</li><li>Two quarto volumes.</li><li>6 full-page and 2 double-page engravings of pirates and scenes of piracy, 2 folding maps and 1 double-page map, and 14 full-page engraved maps/plans.</li><li>Prefaces at front and tables (indices) at rear of both volumes, 1 page of ads at end of part II, 7 pages of bookseller ads at rear of volume II.</li><li>Bookplates from the Fox Pointe collection on front pastedowns.</li><li>Bound in nineteenth-century full calf, rebacked with original brown morocco spine labels laid down, Cambridge-style boards ruled and corner-stamped in gilt, raised bands, spine ornamented in gilt, gilt dentelles, navy blue coated endpapers, all edges gilt.&nbsp;</li></ul> Once the surgeon to Captain Henry Morgan, Exquemelin offers first-hand accounts of buccaneering in the West Indies in the late-seventeenth century; his is one of the few works of documentary evidence for their exploits. It formed the mythology around many of the now-infamous pirates – Morgan himself successfully sued the author for defamation. Ringrose's work brings the history of pirates up to date with the travels of Captain Cook and other voyagers to the South Sea. The magnificent engravings depict battle scenes, maps of the Caribbean, and portraits of major leaders like Morgan. First published in Dutch in 1678, it is rare complete in both volumes with all maps and plates."It has provided the basis for all serious histories of the buccaneers and, in spite of some inaccuracies, remains the standard work on the subject" – David Cordingly

Bucaniers of America

Samuel Buck | Nathaniel Buck

Samuel&nbsp;Buck (1696–1779) and his brother&nbsp;Nathaniel Buck&nbsp;(died between 1759 and 1774) were English engravers and printmakers.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 5.</li><li>Copper engraving, printed on five sheets, framed and glazed individually.</li><li>The most important panorama of London of its period.</li><li>Samuel Buck and his brother Nathaniel are among the finest topographical artists to have worked in</li></ul>England.<ul><li>From 1720 onwards, first Samuel and then his brothers toured England, drawing views of the cities and towns, castles, antiquities (particularly ruined monasteries) and other landmarks; they financed publication of this bold project by soliciting advance subscriptions.</li><li>The crowning achievement of their long career, the most ambitious single view they had undertaken,</li></ul>is this highly important prospect of London taken from the River Thames drawn from five vantagepoints, and then blended into one continuous panorama, extending from Westminster Bridgedownstream to London Bridge and the Tower of London.<ul><li>While many other artists (including, Wenceslas Hollar, Jan Kip and William Morgan, among others) had published earlier panoramas from similar viewpoints, these early versions incorporated a great deal of artistic license to flatter London.</li><li>The Bucks’ image is a faithful rendition, and its size, the detail and its accurate portrayal of London make it a definitive mid-18th century record of London, in an era of rapid change.</li><li>The historical importance of the Buck panorama, its attention to minute detail in the search for accuracy and its artistic beauty make it one of the most important and collectible of any of the</li></ul>images of historic London.<ul><li>Framed and glazed.</li></ul>

A General View of London and Westminster

Henry Frederick Conrad Sander

First-edition set of Sander's Reichenbachia: Orchids Illustrated and Described.<ul><li>Sold as a set of 4.</li><li>Henry Frederick Conrad Sander (German).</li><li>St. Albans, London:&nbsp;F. Sander and J. French for Henry Sothern,&nbsp;[1886]-1888-1894.&nbsp;</li><li>110, 106, iii, 104, 114 pp.</li><li>Large folios.</li><li>Two series bound in four volumes.</li><li>Complete with 48 plates to each volume, 192 in total, plates for each series numbered sequentially 1-96.</li><li>Plates are chromolithographic, by Joseph Mansell, G. Leutzsch and J.L. Macfarlane after Henry Moon, W.H. Fitch, A.H. Loch and C. Storer, heightened with gum arabic, wood-engraved illustrations based on original watercolors.</li><li>First series bound in full brown leather with gilt ruling and titling to spines.</li><li>Second series bound in three-quarters black leather with morocco-grain cloth on boards.</li></ul> The extraordinary magnum opus of Henry Frederick Conrad Sander, a German-born orchidologist who spent much of his career in England. Sander named the collection after Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach, a fellow German and fellow orchidologist, and drew heavily on Reichebach’s work for the text in this collection. The majority of the life-size plates are based on watercolors by Henry George Moon, who eventually became Sander’s son-in-law. Although Reichenbachia was not the first collaboration between Moon and Sanders, they first met in 1884, when Moon visited Sander’s orchid nursery to make drawings for another publication, it is the work for which they are both most famous. The blocks on Moon’s watercolors were handmade out of wood, and the chromolithographs produced from them sometimes required as many as twenty inks; once the printing was completed, many of the plates were individually hand-finished. As a result, the work was fantastically expensive to print, reportedly costing well over £7,000 (over $1.2 million today).

Reichenbachia: Orchids Illustrated and Described

An apparently unpublished letter by Darwin regarding a new second American edition of Origin of Species; autographed and signed ("Ch. Darwin") to Charles Layton, Appleton's London agent.<ul><li>Charles Darwin (English).</li><li>Down, Beckenham, Kent: November 26, [1869].</li><li>3 pages.</li><li>Octavo.</li><li>Bifolium of Down, Bromley, Kent, stationery, with "Bromley" crossed out and corrected to Beckenham.</li></ul> Charles Darwin (1809-1882) writes to Charles Layton, London agent for Appleton, about bringing out a revised and expanded second American edition of On the Origin of Species. The letter is a reply to Layton's of the day before, in which he'd inquired after stereotyped plates of the English edition. In part: "The last or 5th Edit. of the Origin was printed off some months ago &amp; it is impossible to supply stereotypes. I hope that you will inform Mr. Appleton of what I have said of the increased size of this last &amp; 5th Edit. As 2000 copies of this Edit were printed, there will not be a new Edit. for a considerable time ... If Mr. Appleton will reprint this 5th Edition ... I will pledge myself to endevour to persuade Mr. Murray to supply stereotype plates of my new book on the Descent of Man; but as I never before heard of such such a scheme, I have no idea whether he will comply. At any rate I will please myself, on the above conditions &amp; on the terms suggested in your letter, to send over the sheets as printed &amp; stereotype casts of the woodcuts. But please remember my new book will not got to press for many months." Appleton had published the first American edition of Origin in 1860, from Murray's second English edition. In keeping with the terms of the present letter, Appleton published the second American edition, based on the 5th English edition, in 1870, followed by the first American edition of The Descent of Man in 1871.

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Arthur Dobbs

John Thomson

John F. Kennedy

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Charles Darwin

Jacques Barraband

Pierre-Joseph Redouté

Pierre Jean François Turpin, Pierre-Antoine Poiteau

Jean-Théodore Descourtilz

Thomas Pennant

Attributed to Captain James Cook

Karl Marx

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Richard F. Burton

Alexis de Tocqueville

Robert Morden, Philip Lea

Henri Abraham Chatelain

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Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]

Alexander Exquemelin

Samuel Buck, Nathaniel Buck

Henry Frederick Conrad Sander

Charles Darwin