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Spencer, Edmund.
Travels in European Turkey, in 1850, Through Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thrace, Albania and Epirus; with a Visit to Greece and the Ionian Isles.
Publisher: Coburn and Co., London;
Date of Publication: 1851
Stock Code: 15428
First edition. Two volumes complete. Octavo, pp., xi, [2], 416, 8 (publisher’s catalogue), 24 (publisher’s catalogue); xiii, [1], 484. Tissue-guarded ochre-tinted lithographic frontispieces and wood-engraved title-page vignettes to both volumes; folding map of the region to vol. 1, as called for. publisher’s original purple cloth; titled in gilt to spines; elaborate panel design stamped in blind to boards; citron end-papers. Contemporary armorial book label of one ‘William H. Dease’ to front paste-downs. Spines sunned; minor shelf-wear to extremities; top edges dust, three closed tears (approx. 3-4cm) and light scattered foxing to map; minor foxing to prelims and tissue-guards; very occasional spotting to margins, otherwise internally clean and in good order. A very good set in publisher’s cloth. An extensive account of the author’s travels through Ottoman Europe, at a time of unrest for the Turkish provinces. As Spencer writes in his ‘Preliminary Observations’: ‘a touch of the Promethean fire of the Spirit of the Age has kindled the hearts of this neglected and uncared-for people; awakening as it were, from a trance to a consciousness of their own power’ (pp., 2-3). A rare account of the origins of Balkan independence. £750.00