[Rarebooks] fa: A SERIES OF ADVENTURES in the Course of a VOYAGE UP THE RED SEA - Eyles Irwin - 1787

[ArCh]

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Eyles Irwin: A Series of Adventures in the Course of a Voyage up the Red-Sea, on the Coasts of Arabia and Egypt; And of a Route through the Desarts of Thebais, in the year 1777: with a Supplement of a Voyage from Venice to Latichea; and of a Route through the Desarts of Arabia, In Letters to a Lady. London: Printed J. Dodsley, 1787. Third edition, first octavo edition. Two volumes, 8vo (21.5), in early calf; [2], xvi, 387, [1] pp.; [2], 401, [1] pp.; with nine copper-engraved plates and maps, five of which are folding. (complete). ESTC T130820.

The first octavo edition of Irwin's travels, with three more plates than the earlier quarto editions. Bindings rough, but with the contents in better shape. Boards rubbed and worn, rather crudely rebacked with parchment paper, modern printed spine labels, inner hinges of vol. I repaired with cloth tape; leaves mildly age-toned with a few stray small spots, three plates mis-folded with some concomitant creases and browning to the edges protruding from the text blocks; two with closed tears to the margins (one with tape repair to the verso); otherwise quite clean and sound. Front paste-downs with engraved armorial bookplates (Henley).

A colorful account of an extraordinary journey, considered one of the best early descriptions of the Arabian coast of the Red Sea (Blackmer). While returning to England from Madras, India, Irwin was captured and made a prisoner by the vizier of Yambo in present-day Saudi Arabia. Eventually stranded in Cossier (Quseer, Egypt), he made his way to Suez, then across the desert to Luxor, Cairo, and Alexandria. During his eleven-month journey home, Irwin "met with many hair-breadth scapes, and braved innumerable dangers amongst a set of unlettered, barbarous, and perfidious savages, through dangerous and uncultivated desarts, hitherto unknown to the European traveler" (The Critical Review, v. 49, 1780). In the appendix, Irwin offers several poems inspired by his journey, including "An Ode to the Desart, and another to the Nile," odes to the Persian Gulf and the Cape of Good Hope, and a sonnet to the Isle of St. Helena.