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:
Dijk, Mr. L. C. D. van
Zes jaren uit het leven van Wemmer van Berchem
Amsterdam, J.H. Scheltema 1858 first edition
“gevolgd door iets over onze vroegste betrekkingen met Japan. Twee geschiedkundige bijdragen”.
8vo, original printed wrappers with wear. (8), xii, 78; (2), 42 pages with 2 facsimiles of Wemmer’s letters. 3 stamps of the States General library. Very rare.
Based on VOC archives Van Dijk wrote this study, the only, of the lesser known VOC employee and naval hero Van Berchem, while he served in the East Indies and Palliacate during the 12 years truce 1609-1621 of the Dutch Revolt.
The second part relates the early relations of the Dutch with Japan durig the years 1585-1644.
€ 290
Chaillu, Paul B. Du
Explorations and adventures in Equatorial Africa
London, John Murray 1861
“with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chace of the Gorilla, Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, Hippopotamus, and Other Animals”
8vo, publisher’s cloth (Edmonds & Remnants), spine ends repaired. xviii, 479, 32 ads pages, folding frontispiece and map, 26 full page illustrations and many in text. Very good, clean inside with a few neat repairs.
Scarce second, corrected edition, not -deliberately?- mentioned on the title page but in a “Notice to the Second Edition, June 1861” after the Preface. The first edition was heavily critizised, the so-called “Gorilla war”, and was followed up in 2 months with this, apparently hasty, corrected reissue. The adds are still dated April 1861, while there exist first edition copies with May 1861.
Du Chaillu explored the regions of West Africa. During his travels from 1856 to 1859 he observed numerous gorillas, known to scientists only by a few skeletons. He presented himself as the first European to have seen them.
€ 450
Reade, Winwood
The African Sketch-Book
London, Smith Elder & Co 1873 first edition 2 volumes
8vo, publisher’s cloth with normal shelf wear, rebacked retaining original spine, new endpapers. x, (2), 483; vi, (2), 529, (7 ads) pages with 12 (folding/coloured) maps and 10 plates, 2 faint blind stramps. Decent set with ex libris Karl Ferdinand Schaedler, African art expert and author.
In 1868 Reade started his second tour through West Africa and wrote a vivid account of his experiences on the Gold and Slave Coast and surrounding countries. Preface: "It is not only a narrative of travel … but a sketch book of African life”.
€ 330
