[Rarebooks] fa: VAMBERY - TRAVELS IN CENTRAL ASIA 1864 • PERSIA, TARTARY, SAMARKAND, &c.

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 7. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y7gnlu5l

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Arminius [Armin] Vambery: Travels in Central Asia: Being the Account of a Journey from Teheran across the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarcand performed in the year 1863. London: John Murray, 1864. First edition; 8vo (22 cm) in contemporary full leather prize binding from the Edinburgh Collegiate School with its arms on the front cover; marbled endpapers and page edges; with twelve steel-engraved plates, large folding map bound in at the end.

Binding with rubbing, wear to the edges, chip to the leather at the spine head; minimal markings of the (Masonic) Wisconsin Consistory Library: bookplate on the front flyleaf, small shelving number on the verso of the title-page (no other library marks); front paste-down with the prize certificate of Edinburgh Collegiate School (dated 1872); light toning to the contents, a few leaves bumped at the top fore-corner, else very clean and sound; large folding map with a tiny tear at the central fold.

Disguising himself as a dervish, the Hungarian explorer Armin Vambery (1832-1913) spent several months with a band of pilgrims traveling from Tehran across central Iran, through Ispahan, to the khanates of Khiva, Samarkand, and Bokhara in modern-day Uzbekistan. A master of languages, including twenty Turkish dialects, he managed to maintain his disguise throughout, even during lengthy interviews with the Khan Sayyid Muhammad of Khiva, and ultimately returned safely to Constantinople. Vambery's journey was the first of its kind by a European, and his account of it made him an international celebrity.