[Rarebooks] fa: TERRAQUEA or A NEW SYSTEM OF GEOGRAPHY 1793-98 - 4 vols. w/ Maps

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 9. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/mc3n2m6

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


James Gordon: Terraquea; or, A New System of Geography and Modern History. Dublin: Printed for the Author by William Porter, 1794, 1793, 1795, 1798. Four volumes, 8vo, in full early/period tree calf with recent leather spine labels; [2],xxxiii,[1],335,[1] pp.; xxiv,383,[1] pp.; [2],ix,371,[1] pp.; [8],vi,405,[1] pp.; with the lists of subscribers,  publisher's adverts, numerous tables, and five copper-engraved folding maps (complete). Second edition of vol. I, first editions of vols. II-IV. ESTC T125192, T125191.

Uncommon complete set of all four volumes: ESTC locates only one set in the U.S. (U of Mo), and six in the UK and Ireland (BL, Cambridge, Cork, Derry, Dublin, NL of Ireland). Complete with the five engraved folding maps; Volume I: The World with the Latest Discoveries (two tears to the margins), A New Map of Spain [and Portugal]; Volume II: Italy, Switzerland, and Germany; Volume III: The British Islands; A Map of Ireland principally intended to show the position of the Chief Groups of Mountains and the courses of the greater Rivers. Bindings with bumping to the corners, occasional rubbing and scuffing to the boards, spines darkened and rubbed, several joints/hinges professionally repaired; previous owner's name rather crudely clipped from three of the title-pages, another early owner's signature ("Capt. Warde[?] R.N.") on the front free-endpapers; some browning to the preliminary and terminal leaves, occasional scattered spotting and light soiling, but generally quite clean and sound, firmly bound.

The major section headings include: A General View of the Earth's Surface; The Spanish Peninsula and the Islands on its Coasts; The Italian Peninsula and its Islands; Germany; The British Islands; Ireland; The Hebudes [Hebrides]; Iceland; Lapland; Denmark; France; etc. The Rev. James Bentley Gordon (1750-1819), rector of Cannaway, Cork, and vicar of Barragh, Wexford, was "a zealous student of history and geography" (DNB). He wrote a number of other works, such as A History of the Rebellion in Ireland in 1798 (1802), but Terraquea was clearly his magnum opus, and while only these four volumes were published in his lifetime, Gordon continued to write additions and revisions to the work, leaving "copious manuscripts" at his death, some of which were published posthumously (including An Historical and Geographical Memoir of the North American Continent, 1820).