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Catalogue
78
Voyages
& Travels
History
& Natural History
Science & Technology
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105.
WATSON, ROBERT (1730-1781) and WILLIAM THOMSON (1746-1817).
The History of the Reign of Philip the Third, King of Spain. The
First Four Books. By Robert Watson, LL.D. Principal of the United
College in the University of St. Andrew's. The Two Last By William
Thomson, LL.D. London, printed for G.G.J. and J. Robinson, in Pater-Noster
Row; J. Robson, New Bond-street; and J. Sewell, Cornhill. MDCCLXXXVI
(1786). Two volumes. $750
8vo; pp. [4] (including 2pp. "advertisement"), 460; [2],
389, [1], [18] (Index). Full tree calf; spine rebacked, gilt in
compartments; corners worn; in vol. I a corner of one leaf is torn
with affect to a few words; small ink stain on one leaf of vol.
II; light sporadic foxing: small book ticket of H. Scofield Library,
and large armorial bookplate of the Earl of Shrewsbury, dated 1788,
on front paste-downs of both volumes.
ESTC T117156. Robert Watson studied to be a preacher in Glasgow
and Edinburgh, and was appointed to the parish of St. Leonard by
George III. His biography of Philip II of Spain (1777) was praised
by Horace Walpole, and was translated into several languages. Watson
was working on his history of Philip III's reign when he died; it
was completed by Dr. William Thomson and first published in 1783
(DNB). A deeply religious man, Philip III (1578-1621) was not as
diligent in governing his domain as was his father. He was not always
well-advised: the expulsion of nearly 300,000 Moriscos from Spain
from 1609 to 1614 severely damaged the farming economy, for which
landowners had relied on cheap labour and rental income. Spain participated
in the Thirty Years' War during Philip III's reign, joining Austria
and Bavaria to defeat the Czechs at the Battle of White Mountain
(1620). An interesting look at Spain during this active period in
European history.
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106.
WHITE, JOHN. A Voyage to Cochin China. London, Longman, Hurst,
Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1824. First London edition. $900
8vo; pp. xi, [1] (blank), 372 [i.e. 370]; recent half-calf and marbled
paper over boards; little light soil to first and final leaves;
tiny stain to head of p. 95; overall a very good copy, complete
with half-title.
Cordier, Indosinica, 2426; Hill 1861; Goldsmiths' II:24076; Sabin
103411. "This was the first American voyage to ascend the Dong
Nai River, and the crew spent a considerable amount of time in Saigon.
Although much of John White's narrative is devoted to Cochin China,
its inhabitants and their language, it also contains an abundance
of observations on Vietnam and the Vietnamese ... [he] also discusses
Batavia and the Philippines." -(Hill). The first edition was
published the previous year in Boston, as History of a Voyage to
the China Sea, and both editions have become quite scarce.
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Scarce, and in a De Coverly Binding
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107. [WHITE, JOSEPH BLANCO]. Letters from Spain By Don Leucadio
Doblado (pseud). London, Henry Colburn, 1822. First edition. $2,150
8vo; pp. xii, 483 (1). Full calf; binding by Roger de Coverly (so
signed on verso of front free endpaper); a.e.g.; two neat bookplates;
sporadic light foxing; overall a very good copy. The larger [engraved]
bookplate is that of Samuel Ashton Thompson Yates and dated 1894;
the smaller of the two is that of Hugh Bright, a relative of Yates,
and dated 1903. A scarce work.
Tidcombe, p. 8; COPAC cites copies of this first edition only at
UL, Aberdeen, Cambridge, and Oxford; University of Liverpool, Special
Collections and Archives, holds the preponderance of White's works.
The author also wrote under the name of "José Maria
Blanco y Crespo". He was the son of an English vice-consul
in Seville and a Spanish woman, and was ordained to the priesthood
in 1800. Shortly thereafter he had severe religious doubts, and
left Spain for England in 1810, where he ultimately entered the
Anglican Church. De Coverly, who worked in England in the latter
half of the nineteenth century, was an "art bookbinder"
who had studied under Zaehnsdorf and worked with Leighton. It was
in his studio that Cobden-Sanderson received his training. This
book, one of many anti-Catholic works by the same author, is an
unhappy account of his travels in Spain, a country about which he
could obviously find nothing positive to say and about whose people
he could only find fault.
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108.
WILSON, ANDREW (1831-1881). The Abode of Snow. Observations
on a Journey from Chinese Tibet to the Indian Caucasus, through
the Upper Valleys of the Himalaya. Edinburgh and London, William
Blackwood and Sons, 1876. Second edition. $175
8vo; pp. xxviii, 436; coloured frontis. (tissue guard loose), engraved
title vignette, map with trail of journey marked in red; 4 pp. publisher's
adverts. Publisher's green cloth, with some water staining; blind
embossed design on front and rear covers; spine with gilt title
and design of mountain scene; folding map with trail marked in red.
Very slight staining on lower edge; tear in map repaired in two
places on verso, some residue of cellophane tape; small tear in
rear endpaper.
Yakushi W87; Neate W95; Cordier 2917; BM 2354. Andrew Wilson's career
as a journalist took him to India, Chine and Japan, where he travelled
extensively and wrote for British magazines and newspapers. The
Abode of Snow, first published in 1875, was based on articles he
wrote for Blackwood's Magazine, and is "not only a vivid record
of very arduous travel, it contains also valuable ethnological observations,
and displays intense feeling for natural beauty expressed in excellent
prose" (DNB).
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