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Volume I: xlii, 339 pp. / Volume II: 373 pp. engraved portrait frontispiece, 4 large folding engraved maps, the maps laid on linen + 86 engraved plates & plans (including 9 double-page and/or folding, one a letterpress plate 'Letter of the Archbishop of Cyprus'), lacking half-titles, some offsetting, dampstaining, browning or spotting, contemporary full calf, slightly rubbed, rebacked retaining original spines, otherwise set in good condition. First English edition. The first edition was published in French at Paris in 1814. Badia y Leblich was a Spanish traveller who assumed the name of Ali Bey el Abassi and disguised himself as an arab, apparently as an agent of the Spanish government. He first travelled through North Africa to Egypt where he met Chateaubriand. From there he went on to Cyprus and made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1807. He returned to Spain the same year via Jerusalem, Damascus and Constantinople. Ali Bey was the first Christian to describe in some detail Mecca, and the mosque of Omar in Jerusalem, as well as some little known aspects of Islam. The plates, which include numerous plans and views of Mecca, Medina and Cyprus, are mostly after Ali Bey. Bibliographic References: Blackmer 62; Not in Weber. Hilmy I, 30; Palau, 21683; Brunet I, 182-3; Tobler, p. 140; Cobham-Jeffrey, p. 1; Rohricht 1607. #7585. Seller Inventory # 004791
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Bibliographic Details
Title: Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, ...
Publisher: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,, London
Publication Date: 1816
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Good
Edition: First English Edition
