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Mrs Bishop (Isabella Bird).
Korea and Her Neighbours. A Narrative of Travel, with An Account of the Vicissituds and Position of the Country.
Publisher: John Murray, Albemarle Street, London;
Date of Publication: 1905
Stock Code: 14341
Second Edition. Two volume octavo, pp., xvii, [3], 261, [1], plus 12 black-and-white photographic plates, 1 folding map, and 11 illustrations within text; [2], v, [1], 321, [1], plus 12 plates, 1 folding map, and 14 illustrations within text. Collated and complete. Uniformly bound in original publisher’s maroon cloth, titled in gilt to spines, top edges dyed red. A few spots of soiling to boards, slight loss to foot of spine on vol. 2, spines a little faded. Occasional spots of toning to contents, a few leaves of volume 1 loose, but still holding, plates and maps clean, bright and quite fresh. Overall, a very good copy. Isabella L. Bird (1831-1904) was born in Yorkshire, but would spend most of her life travelling extensively in Asia and the Pacific. Bird travelled first to Hawaii, then to Sandwich Islands, before travelling in China, Japan, and Korea. She was the first woman admitted to the Royal Geographical Society, and published several accounts of her travels. This volume describes Bird’s travels, undertaken in 1894, from Manchuria, up the Yangtze to Sichuan, to the Tibetan border, and to Korea, which required that the then 63 year-old Bird travel 8000 miles through East Asia solo. The preface describes that this is ‘a long and intimate study of a people whose isolation during many centuries renders a description of their character, institutions, and peculiarities especially interesting at the present stage of their history’. £250.00