antiquarian rare books: travel & exploration,
atlases, maps and others
(internet) antiquarian bookshop
Bronckhorst, Netherlands
mail to Rob van der Graaf
for orders, condition reports etc
worldwide shipping!
visits by appointment only
easy payment with PayPal possible (outside Euro zone)
Hundreds of adventurous travel stories outside Europe,
by land and sea, ego documents,
most in first published edition
and in original or contemporary binding.
recent additions:
(Ermakov, Dimitri)
альбом военно-грузинская дорога (Album Georgian Military Road)
(St. Petersburg), и́здаhie Александpови́уа (publisher M. A. Aleksandrov) ~1905
Oblong 8vo 24x18 cm, publisher’s Jugendstil decorated cloth. 26 leaves with photo engravings by Ermakov. Traces of use. Rare.
Bound by Otto Kirchner, St. Petersburg, then a well known bindery. The unimaginable ethnic diversity of the Caucasus was illustrated from the beginning of the century in a large number of engraved and lithographic albums for the educated audience. Over the years, the famous Georgian photographer Ermakov published a hundred and ninety two similar albums with his own photos about the ethnic groups, villages and towns, roads and monuments of the Caucasus, rare nowadays. The Georgian Military Road runs for 212 kilometres between Tbilisi (Georgia) and Vladikavkaz (Russia) and follows the traditional route used by invaders and traders throughout the ages. Dating back to a time before the 1st century BC, what started as a crude path used by both traders and invaders was converted into a carriage road in 1783.
€ 380
Backhouse, James
A Narrative of a Visit to the Mauritius and South Africa
London/ York, Hamilton, Adams and Co./ J.L. Linney 1844, first edition
8vo, old cloth. xvi, 648, lvi pages with 16 etchings and 28 wood cuts, a folding map of Mauritius and a large (46x89 cm) detailed folding map of South Africa by James Wyld ( who had an excellent reputation as a mapmaker). Frontispiece foxed, other plates with marginal foxing.
Backhouse was a minister and botanist. His extensive travels to almost every inhabited town and district and ample descriptions of the flora makes it an important diary of the region. Provenance: Ex botanist Herman Harry Bolus, son of Harry Bolus who was founder of the Bolus Herbarium, now in the University of Cape Town.
€ 370
Freygang en deszelfs echtgenoote, Wilhelm van
Brieven over den Kaukasus en Georgië en verslag van eene reis in Perzië in 1812
Amsterdam, Johannes van der Hey 1817, first Dutch edition
8vo, original wrappers, spine repaired, new label. viii, 340 pages with a folding map. Title engraving by Veelwaard of Mount Ararat.
Dutch translation of “Lettres sur le Caucase et la Géorgie. Suivies d'une relation d'un voyage en Perse en 1812”. Von Freygang was a Russian diplomat, sent to Persia negotiating a peace treaty. He travelled first from Petersburg to Tbilisi (Tiflis) with his wife and kids. The first part of the book consists of the letters of his wife to a friend. The second part, written by himself, is an account of his travels to Tabriz in Persia.
€ 390
