The Rainbow Bridge

London: Edward Arnold & Co.. Very Good- with no dust jacket. 1921. First Edition. Hardcover. No signatures. Small 3/8" tears to cloth at ends of front joint. Boards with moderate bruising to corners, knock to upper corner of front board. Some rubbing to cloth. ; xi, [1], 383 pages + frontispiece + 15 plates + 1 folding map. Blue cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine and front board, gilt rule on spine. Page dimensions: 224 x 140mm. Account of an expedition to the Kansu province of China and north-eastern Tibet (near Koko Nor) in 1914-1915, with a botanical, plant-collecting focus. Farrer (1880-1920) was accompanied on the expedition by William Purdom. Published posthumously, after Farrer died while on an expedition to Burma in 1920. The illustrations include both black-and-white photographic illustrations, and illustrations based on the author's botanical sketches. "Already very far away behind me lie Tien Tang and Chebson, and the huge harsh glory of their desolate land [. . .]" - from the Author's Preface, dated 1918. "I won permission to throw wide another of the big doors, to get more light, and try a photograph. This did not turn out well, but photographs of Tibetan church-interiors are by no means things you come across every day, and anyhow the vague amorphous blur that the camera produced gives, after all, no such bad impression of the blurred and vague impressiveness of Chebson" - page 163. Contents: Lanchow; The New Year; The Start; Sining-Fu; Over the Alps; Wolvesden House and Wolfstone Dene; Wolfstone Dene and the Halls of Heaven; Tien Tang to Chebson; Chebson Abbey; Home Again; Summer Work; The Hastened End; Farewell to Wolvesden; Back to Lancho; The Downward Trail; The Waterways; Colophon; Botanical Index. Illustrations: Tien Tang Abbey; A Village Inn; An Interiror; The Walls of Sining; Wolvesden House; The Bridge near Tien Tang; Chebson Abbey; On the roof of the Abbey Church; Dolomite Valley; In the Da-Tung Alps; Isopyrum farreri; Trollius pumilus and Geranium; Primula farreri; Gentiana farreri; Boats at Bei Shui Jang; The Cliff of the Thousand Buddhas; Map of the Kansu Province of China showing the author's route in 1914 and 1915. [References: Yakushi (1984) F18 - "Account of the author's explorations in the Upper Burma and Eastern Tibet"; see also Roy Lancaster's "Travels in China" (1989) for more references to Farrer, e.g. page 69 - "In typical style Farrer tells us that it 'blooms in spring between the flagstones of dead emperors' graves, in March, the only sign of life in that silent mountain valley of death where the ancient sovereigns of China rest' (quoted from Farrer's "The English Rock Garden"; see also Geoffrey Smith's 3 page Introduction to the Cadogan Books reprint - "When botanising, Farrer escaped so completely, became so totally absorbed in the plants aroundo him that he was oblivious even to the perils of avalanche, floor or precipice."] .