Americana & Travel

Art and Evidence: Unique 18th-Century Watercolors of the Deepest Amazon by the Boundary Commissioner in charge of the Spanish Survey party: Drama and Adversity in the Luso-Hispanic Borderlands of Colonial South America

A collection of five stunning and previously unknown watercolors illustrating dramatic scenes from the joint Spanish-Portuguese boundary commission sent to demarcate the frontiers of the Amazon following the 1777 Treaty of San Ildefonso between Portugal and Spain.

Early edition of Sir Mandeville’s landmark work

An Italian vernacular edition of the Travels of Sir John Mandeville, the fundamental travel book, first best-seller in the genre, and a text which greatly influenced the course of subsequent exploration. One of the most popular texts of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, taking the reader to the Holy Land, Egypt, Turkey, Persia, Tartary, India and Cathay, its influence was profound and persisted well into the era of printing and the age that saw the Western discoveries of the New World and the sea routes to Asia.

Rare Portuguese colonial account of the Mato-Grosso in Brazil

First and only edition of this rare account of a travel to the Mato-Grosso, by an unknown author who Borba believes to have been real. The region the account deals with is the current State of Mato Grosso, today mostly covered with Amazon rainforest, wetlands and savanna plains.

The Inquisition in Mexico: ships inspected at the ports of America for forbidden books

Extraordinarily rare and relevant document from the Mexican Inquisition forbidding the entry of books amongst other objects into the Viceroyalty of New Spain, this time not merely addressing the population but ordering the checking of the ships arriving at the port. This is one of two editions of presumably the same year, this one unknown in any other example and the other known in a single example, at the JCB.

One of the most magnificent works published on the antiquities of Mexico.

First edition of one of the greatest illustrated works on Mexican antiquities and their conspiracy theories, and a monumental privately funded publication.

One of the earliest Chronicles by a Mexican native, the manuscript from the libraries of Viscount Kingsborough and Phillipps

Fascinating manuscript copy of Tezozomoc’s chronicle of Mexico, a descendant of Moctezuma, one of the first members of the Mexican native population to write an account of their own people and to be educated at the Imperial Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco.

“The first illustrated book of travel ever printed” (Fairfax Murray), the first artist’s book, and the first printed travel report of the Middle East.

Fabulous example, complete with all the folding views and in a contemporary binding, of one of the most famous illustrated incunables, Breydenbach’s is the first work ever to feature folding plates and the first illustrated travel book, it is also the first time an Arabic alphabet appears; this is the first edition printed by Peter Drach, and is illustrated with the original engravings of the Mainz edition, this is the second Latin edition.

The earliest publication of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address in book form.

First edition of Lincoln's immortal "Gettysburg Address" in book form, preceded only by newspaper printings and a rare 16-page pamphlet printed for the Washington Daily Morning Chronicle (printed c. 23-24 November 1863).

One of the finest color plate books ever produced, illustrating the country in the turmoil following the struggle for Independence.

One of the rarest and most beautiful views of Mexico from the 19th century, also considered one of the finest color-plate books ever produced, showing gorgeous scenes of the Valley of Mexico, without the slightest evidence of the ongoing political turmoil plaguing the country in the aftermath of the war of Independence. The plates are made after the paintings of a key early British painter of Mexico, Daniel Thomas Egerton, one of the original members of the Royal Society of British Artists. Egerton´s life contemporary to the publication of this set of views was submersed in intrigue and catastrophe, ending in his assassination. He was amongst the first foreign artists to enter Mexico, which borders were essentially closed to non-Spanish artists throughout the Viceregal period.

A French Tour of the United States and its Prisons in 1837, Tocqueville’s successor.

Blouet´s unpublished and unofficial autograph journal describing a tour in the United States in the winter of 1837, designed to study the United States’ renowned penitentiary system, organized by the French government in the wake of Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont’s similar seminal mission a few years earlier in 1831 and predates Charles Dickens’ tour in 1842, signed and dated, of which no other copies have been found. The manuscript is joined by a letter from John Haviland to Blouet, in which Haviland shows his appreciation to Blouet for sending his publication and also to inform Blouet of some of the modifications he had recently made to improve penitentiary architecture.

“Unsurpassed in Importance” (Lada-Mocarski), one of the most influential Spanish voyages to the Pacific and Northwest Coast.

First edition, an important and rare account of Spanish exploration of the Northwest Coast of North America and the Pacific, illustrated with an atlas comprising 9 maps and 8 engraved plates of the local costumes and native population, “Unsurpassed in Importance” (Lada-Mocarski).

Magnificent work on the Dutch colony of Brazil, the folio edition, complete with all plates and maps

First edition, the most famous book published on Brazil of the 17th century, illustrated with double page and folding views of Brazilian ports, cities and maps by Blaeu, all inspired in the illustration of Franz Post, who accompanied Nassau on his trip to Brazil. This is the folio edition, coveted by collectors over the small and far more common 8vo edition.

First Edition, first issue of Smith's magnum opus, “The foundation of England’s knowledge of America” (PMM).

First edition, one of the most important of all the books written about the English colonization of the Americas, Captain Smith's Generall Historie of Virginia ranks as the greatest illustrated work on this period; it includes Smith's eye-witness observations of the founding of the English Colony at Jamestown, his capture by the King of the Pamaunkee, and rescue through the intercession of Pocahontas, occurred during his time spent in Virginia (1606-1609), and his exploration of New England (1610-1617). The Generall Historie is a major American primary source, incorporating much of his early writing as well as contemporary narratives by others.

The itinerary from Venice to Constantinople in pictures

Attractive copy of a highly illustrated itinerary from Venice to Constantinople, comprising 72 full-page maps, including many of Constantinople and also of Cyprus, Famagusta, Crete, Rhodes, Jerusalem and the Near East. Published several times in the first half of the 17th century, the subsequent editions contained a variable number of plates. The maps show cities and outposts along the Mediterranean, the Dalmatian coast and the Levant.

A rare Spanish account of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, unlocated in the United States.

Second edition, extremely rare, of the account of the pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1518 by the Marquis of Tarifa accompanied by Juan del Encina, one of the earliest Spanish accounts of a voyage to Middle East, and one of the rarest accounts of a Holy Land pilgrimage, an interesting addition to the corpus of better-known accounts of voyages of the Holy Land. The narrative details the journey through the south of Europe and the Middle East on the way to Jerusalem. During the trip, the Marquis contacted local noblemen, merchants, and acquired books for his library, including works by Boccaccio and Marco Polo. The book is extraordinarily rare, as is the first edition printed in 1580 in Lisbon, of which no copy is located in OCLC.

The first description of the Escorial and its contents, by its architect.

First edition, first issue, extraordinarily rare, of the first description of the Escorial, by Juan de Herrera, the architect of what is widely regarded as the most impressive building created in Spain in the 16th century. A book of exceptional rarity, and importance, which gives us the architect´s feel of what his magnum opus is and looks like. Herrera was the author of a set of drawings on the Escorial which were engraved by Pedro Perret Perret (1555-1637).

One of two known copies of a Lafreri-School set of 16th century maps of the Continents.

First edition with an almost unique set of maps of the Continents, different from almost every other copy known, except for a copy held in Spain. This copy contains a set of trapezoidal maps of the Continents.

The finest example Cortes navigational treatise to come to the market in a century.

First edition, a fabulous copy with the woodcuts and maps in contemporary color and housed in 17th or 18th century calf, in genuine condition, of the “most complete statement of navigational science to date” (PMM), a work of significant influence in the English world, an English translation by Richard Edden appeared as early as 1561, becoming one of the most relevant navigational treatises used in the Elizabethan era. The work contains information about the recently discovered regions by the Spanish and the Portuguese in America and the East.

The first legislation addressed to the welfare of the Native Americans,
promulgated at the instances of Bishop Bartolome de Las Casas.

First edition, of pivotal transcendence, a work that altered the Spanish
position towards Native Americans and their relation with the
conquistadors, the first book dedicated solely to American Law and to
the betterment of the treatment of the indigenous population, including,
extraordinarily, an abolition cause. Of superlative rarity institutionally
and in the market.

Fine photo album of Mexico and Cuba, along with a German cigar factory

Very fine, large original photographs with views of Mexico by Abel Briquet (1833-1926), a French photographer and owner of a studio in Paris, operating from the 1850s onwards.

Second and Third Cortes Letters of 1524 “a work of bedrock importance to the New World” (Reese).

This fine sammelband comprises the first Latin Editions of Cortes's 2nd and 3rd Letters, bound together in the early 17th century, along with Italian translations of Cortes's Second and Third Letters excerpted from Ramusio's 1606 Navigatione et Viaggi, and with Porcacchi's 1605 Isolario.