Rare books from Walkabout Books

New York: Harper and Brothers, 1862. First American Edition. Hardcover. good. 8vo, xii, [4], 574+ [2] ads. Illustrated with engravings; 3 maps on one folding sheet. Blue cloth stamped in blind and gilt. Spine darkened, fraying to spine ends, corners rubbed, front hinge partially cracked. Embossed library stamp on a few pages, bookplate on front pastedown; otherwise unmarked. Provenance: From the collection of Burton scholar and bibliographer James Casada. Written a few years after Burton's celebrated account of his journey to Mecca and Medina, this book describes the explorer's 1860 visit to Salt Lake City. Burton, who met Brigham Young on the trip, applied his characteristic ethnographic eye to Mormon ways, and his work offers a detailed and sympathetic portrait. The appendix contains a number of Mormon documents and a Mormon chronology. Wagner-Camp 370:2; Howes B1033; Flake 1029.

London: Tinsley Brothers, 1863. Hardcover. Very good. Two volumes in the rarest binding state (without Burton's name or FRGS on the spines), but with a "second edition" slug on the title pages. This state was apparently unknown to Penzer and was probably the result of an attempt to boost sales by the publisher, as the text is unchanged. Plate of Julu house is the frontispiece to Volume I, and the map (now detached and laid in) is in Volume II. . Both volumes lightly bumped/rubbed, but clean and sound. Small bookplate of F.H. Spencer on each front pastedown. Much to his dismay, Burton's first consular posting landed him on a small, desolate island off the coast of West Africa. He took every opportunity to leave the place, exploring various parts of the mainland and making observations on cultural and traditions, health and sanitary conditions, and slavery, among other things. The account of his journeys into Sierra Leone and Nigeria to investigate stories of gold and gold mining is credited with… Read More

London: T.Cadell and W. Davies, 1804. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Quarto. pp. ix, [3], 632, with 8 plates (including frontispiece), five of which are hand-colored. Recent full calf with new endpapers, original red spine label preserved, three armorial ink stamps on the top edge of the text block. Tissue repair to first page of table of contents, ocasional foxing and minor soiling in the margins; overall quite clean and sound. "Barrow accompanied Lord Macartney's mission to the court of China in 1792 as his private secretary, and the present account...is one of the best illustrated English travels on China. The eight plates are from drawings by William Alexander, who also accompanied the embassy and later published his own work. The strict exclusion of Europeans by the Chinese emperors had left China very much terra incognita to the western world well into the nineteenth century. Barrow was an excellent observer, and the text contains a number of descriptions and illustrations of Chinese… Read More

London: John Stockdale, 1801. Hardcover. Near fine. First octavo edition and second edition overall. Six volumes uniformly bound in recent quarter leather and marbled boards, complete with two large folding maps/charts and 17 folding plates; 2 pages of ads at the end of Volume VI. Occasional light foxing, a couple small splits/tears to maps, else fine. Signature of Alfred Fowler on the front free endpaper of Volume I and the rear pastedown of Volume II. Vancouver sailed by way of the Cape of Good Hope to Australia, then to New Zealand, Hawaii, and the northwest coast of America -- discovering previously unknown geographical features in each locale. In three seasons' work, Vancouver surveyed the coast of California with remarkable accuracy, visited a number of the Spanish settlements in Alta California, investigated the Strait of Juan de Fuca, circumnavigated Vancouver island, and disproved the existence of any passage between the Pacific and Hudson Bay. In all, Vancouver's party sailed about 55,000… Read More

Grenoble: Imp. F. Dardelet. Softcover. Very good. Undated, ca. 1920. 8.5 x 5.25 inches, [32] pp. Moderate handling wear; very good. Text in French. Timetables, rates, and itineraries for a variety of chauffer-driven routes stretching from the Alpine heights of Chamonix down to the Mediterranean shores of Nice and Marseille. The company's six-cylinder automobiles were specially built by Delahaye and could seat up to 14 passengers. Many ads for hotels and restaurants.

Kobe, Japan: Mitsumura Printing Company, 1909. Hardcover. Good. 11 x 14.25 inches, oblong. String-tied decorative cloth boards. Six pages of text, followed by 16 full-page collotype plates and one double-page folding panorama. Light soiling and wear to boards, final leaf with a repair to the margin (not affecting image). National Association of Cotton Manufacturers bookplate on front pastedown and ink stamp on title page call number at lower right corner of front board, otherwise unmarked and internally quite clean. This edition is undated, and we have not been able to determine whether it is earlier or later than another edition that is dated 1909 and credited to Kobe-based photographer S. Ichida (Ichida Sota, 1843-1896). In 1909, the Kanegafuchi Spinning Company employeed more than 14,000 workers and was the largest cotton spinning company in Japan. The company was uncommonly committed to the welfare of its laborers, providing schooling for both adult workers and their children, and offering them… Read More

Hardcover. Very good. Black leather album containing 54 tissue-guarded leaves of watercolor paper, of which 43 have been used. 10 x 12 inches, stamped in gilt on the front "Sketches on the Nile / Alan Hinch / 1938." Leather scuffed, cloth tape reinforcement to inner hinges, all else very good. Alan Hinch was born in England c. 1881, but was living in the United States by 1920, when the federal census documents him working in Miami as pilot of a private yacht owned by socialite James Deering, an executive in International Harvester Company. He apparently embarked on this Nile cruise as companion to his next employer, Richard Flint Howe (1863-1943), another International Harvester executive who had married James Deering's sister, Abby. Passenger manifests show Hinch as traveling in the company of a "Mr. R. Howe," and the census of 1940 lists him as butler on Howe's estate. He was clearly more than a simple servant, however, as this charming and humorous album reveals. The album documents the journey… Read More

Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1910. Hardcover. Very good. Volume VIII: pp ix, 238, indexed, with color frontispiece and 16 other plates, as well as figures and line drawings in the text; Volume IX: pp ix, 284, indexed, with photogravure frontispiece and three plates. Original green cloth stamped in gilt. Volume XIII has a small area of dampstaining on the back cover (not affecting the interior) and light rubbing to the spine ends; Volume IX has some minor discoloration to the front board. Both volumes internally very clean and sound. Organized and financed by railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman, the Harriman Alaska Expedition included 25 scientists and naturalists, as well as sizeable team of photographers and artists, among them Edward Curtis, Frank Dellenbaugh, and Louis Agassiz Fuertes. During the summer of 1899, the party cruised the waters off southeastern and southern Alaska and the eastern Aleutians, making numerous stops for scientific investigation and collecting. Trevor Kincaid, the… Read More

London: W.C. Such, Printer and Publisher. Very good. Broadside. Undated, ca. 1922. 25 x 19 cm (ca. 9.75" x 7.5"), on newsprint or similar stock. Old folding creased, closed tear with archival repair on verso; very good. Although this song--a lament for England's poor and unemployed--may have been written as early as the 1890s, this edition, with its plea to "Please buy a copy from an unemployed ex-service man," was printed in the aftermath of World War I. Unemployment in England became a significant problem around 1920, as the country's economy slowed, trade decreased, and debts incurred by the war loomed large. Reincorporating the demobilized troops into the civilian workforce and providing sufficient resources for those disabled during the war proved particularly challenging. We locate copies of this song sheet at the British Library, Bodleian (Ballad-Roud # V20673), and the University of Warwick.

Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1846. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Title continues: "With a Description of the Countries Passed Through, Including their Geography, Geology, Resources, Present Condition, and the Different Nations Inhabiting Them." 7.5" x 4.5", 303 pp, bound in three-quarter leather and marbled boards; rebacked, with new endpapers, earlier spine laid down. The large folding map is supplied in facsimile. Light foxing to title page, stain affecting margin and a small amount of text on last ca. 20 leaves, otherwise quite clean. First edition, first issue (with page numbers 77-88, 270-271, and 302 placed in the inner margin) of one of the most important overland narratives, with considerable detail on the fur trade. Sage (1817-1893) was a self-taught newspaper printer and editor from Ohio with a strong impulse to travel and explore. Eager to learn more about the vast region beyond the Missouri frontier, in 1841 he organized a small party and headed west. His travels brought him into… Read More

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1897. Hardcover. Very good. Second and preferred edition, with folding map. 25.5 cm, 283 pp. in original pictorial cloth boards, beautifully illustrated with 25 full-page photogravures and many additional illustrations in the text. Boards are lightly spotted, but still quite attractive; internally clean and sound. The topographical map, titled "Map of the Lake Louise Region Showing Part of the Summit Range of the Canadian Rocky Mountains" is laid in at the front and is in fine condition. The author was an early explorer of the Canadian Rockies who made several first ascents, including Temple, Aberdeen, Niblock, and Indefatigable. In a 1941 article in the American Alpine Journal, climber J. Henry Scattergood described the book as "delightful," praising Wilcox's "exquisite descriptions of Lake Louise, Valley of the Ten Peaks (then called by him Desolation Valley) and neighborhood." More recently, Zac Robinson and Stephen Slemon wrote in Alpinist magazine (No. 50, 2015)… Read More

1928. Softcover. Very good. 4" x 9" (folded), [16] pp, with illustrations from photographs, double-page "Relief Map of the North-of-Bay Country." One leaf loose from staples, otherwise very good. A scarce and attractive brochure describing outdoor recreational opportunities accessible via the routes of the Golden Gate Ferry Company and the Vallejo-San Francisco Ferry (Monticello Steamship Co.). Written by John F. Greathead of the Trail & Mountain Club, Vallejo, the brochure provides 1928 ferry schedules and describes hikes to Mount Veeder Volcanic Crated, Lokoya Lodge, Green Valley Falls, Atlas Peak, Wooden Valley, Sulphur Springs Mountain and Lake Hermann, Mount Vaca, The Calistoga Geyser and Petrified Forest, Bald Mountain, Alpine Lake, and the North Shore of the Golden Gate. OCLC lists one copy of a similar 1927 brochure and no copies of this 1928 edition.

San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1966. Hardcover. Near fine/near fine. Revised edition. 155 pp, with index, photographs, maps. Near fine copy in original pictorial cloth, slight spotting to top edge. Dust jacket has a few minor chips and tears. Edwards, who spent nine years as a seasonal ranger and naturalist at Glacier, provides descriptions of numerous peaks and routes, supplemented by general and area maps and 48 pages of photographs by Ansel Adams, Philip Hyde, Cedric Wright, Bob and Ira Spring, and others.

London: Methuen, 1899. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. 390 pp, with index, half-tone and photogravure illustrations from photographs by the author and by Arthur E. Lightbody and Stuart Vines, folding panorama, 2 folding maps. Bound in original red cloth with gilt lettering, image of a condor on upper board. Upper corners bumped (visible on text block), spine just slightly faded, text clean, binding sound. FitzGerald (1871-1931) was a wealthy American-born mountaineer best known for organizing the expedition described here. Having previously climbed in the Alps and New Zealand, he set his sights on South America in 1896. "He took a geologist, surveyor, engineer, and naturalist to make scientific surveys, and six alpine guides led by Mattias Zurbriggen. FitzGerald made several unsuccessful attempts before Zurbriggen went on alone to make the first ascent of Aconcagua (22,835 feet), the highest peak in the Americas" (DNB). Neate F37.

New York: Little, Brown, 1930. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/very good. 308 pp, with illustrations from photographs. Some uneven toning to cloth, light dust soiling to top edge, pale stain at margin of title page. Otherwise claan and sound. In the scarce original dust jacket, which has some short tears and small losses, but is well-preserved and attractive overall, with the original $2.50 price present. The first biography of Wilbur and Orville Wright. As described on the dust jacket: "Basing his book on the unpublished letters and diaries of the two men, and on data obtained from Orville and his family, the author has laid strong stress on the personal and human side. It is a charming and sympathetic picture of an unusually devoted family life...and of the steady pursuit of an ideal through all sorts of difficulties and setbacks.