[Rarebooks] fa: JAMES BRUCE - TRAVELS TO DISCOVER THE SOURCE OF THE NILE - 6 vols. 1790

[ArCh]

Auction ending Sunday, November 14. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/4yuvxwj5

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


James Bruce of Kinnaird: Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773. Dublin: Printed by William Slater, for P. Wogan [et al], 1790-91. First Dublin edition. Six volumes, 8vo (21.5), in early cloth-backed boards, original(?) printed paper labels laid down on the spines; with 62 (of 63) engraved plates and maps, six of which are folding; lacking one map. Vols. I and VI are dated 1790; vols. II-V are dated 1791, as per ESTC. ESTC N27890.

Bound without end-papers; half-title page to vol. VI only; one folding map with a tear and some loss at the fold; vol. III with early ownership signature to the title-page ("Catherine Quin"); contents with very occasional light spotting, soiling and toning (most noticeable to the title-pages and a few of the plates), else uncommonly clean and bright. Loosely laid in are two nineteenth-century Dublin United Tramways tickets, the Terenure Line, with an ad for "Eade's Celebrated Gout and Rheumatic Pills" on the versos.

A foundational work of African travel writing. Bruce did indeed reach the source of the Blue Nile, at Lake Tana (Tzana) in modern-day Ethiopia, though it's disputed whether he was the first European to do so. He was, however, indisputably the first to follow the Blue Nile from its source to its confluence with the White Nile. There is some debate in esoteric circles about whether Bruce, as a Mason, was actually more interested in finding the Ark of the Covenant than the source of the Nile.