antiquarian bookseller - Peter Harrington

Peter Harrington Antiquarian Bookseller
“THE FIRST AND INDISPENSIBLE
WORK UPON THE ARABS OF THE
DESERT” – T.E. LAWRENCE
37. DOUGHTY, Charles M.
Travels in Arabia Deserta.
Cambridge, At The University Press, 1888 [39460] £3750
2 volumes, 8vo. Finely bound by The Chelsea Bindery in full
dark green morocco, titles and decoration to spines gilt, raised
bands, single ruled panel to boards gilt, twin rule to turnins
gilt, plain burgundy endpapers, all edges gilt. Numerous
plates, maps &c., some folding, colour folding map in endpocket
to Volume I. Text lightly browned, else a very good
copy handsomely bound.
FIRST EDITION, First Impression. “Travels in Arabia
Deserta, on which Doughty laboured from 1879 to 1884
and which he continued correcting until its publication in
1888, is an unrivalled encyclopaedia of knowledge about
all aspects of nineteenth-century and earlier Arabia. In
a notable contemporary review in Academy, Sir Richard
Francis Burton praised the book’s scientific knowledge
and its style … So reliable was the book’s anthropology
of the Bedouin peoples and its topography, that British
intelligence mined it for information during the First and
Second World wars. Doughty’s contributions to all areas
of Arabian knowledge continue to be praised by scholars”
(Stephen Tabachnik in ODNB).
38. DOUGHTY, Charles M.
Travels in Arabia Deserta. With an
Introduction by T. E. Lawrence.
London, Jonathan Cape, 1936 [24947] £750
2 volumes, large 8vo. Original brown cloth, titles to spines
gilt, top edge stained brown, others untrimmed. Illustrated
throughout. A little shelf wear, light foxing to fore edges and
end leaves, otherwise very good.
New and Definitive Edition, in which T. E. Lawrence
reintroduced Doughty’s Victorian masterpiece to the
modern reading public.
39. DOUGLAS, Norman.
Fountains in the Sand. Rambles
among the oases of Tunisia.
London, Martin Secker, 1912 [39741] £450
8vo. Original light blue cloth, titles to spine and upper board
gilt, upper board divided into six panels double-ruled in blind.
With 16 black and white plates. Some occasional light foxing,
spine and boards a little faded, tips slightly bumped, a very
good copy.
FIRST EDITION. With the author’s signed presentation
inscription to the front free endpaper “For Islay with
love from Norman Capri, 1948.” The recipient was the
photographer Islay de Courcy Lyons, companion of the
writer and experimental film-maker Kenneth Macpherson.
Lyons and Macpherson shared their house on Capri with
Douglas in his declining years.
40. DOYLE, Sir Charles
William.
A Non-Military Journal, or
Observations made in Egypt, by an
Officer upon the Staff of the British
Army; describing the Country,
its Inhabitants, their Manners
and Customs; with Anecdotes,
Illustrative of them.
London: T. Cadell and W. Davies; T. Egerton; J. Harding; A. Wilson,
1803 [37406] £1500
4to (250 × 185 mm). Folding lithographic frontispiece of
Aboukir Bay and 3 other similar plates. Some browning
throughout, one plate very slightly cropped at the foreedge,
otherwise very good in contemporary black half calf
on marbled boards, rubbed, some stripping from the lower
board.
FIRST EDITION. Doyle served with Abercromby in the
Netherlands and was thanked personally by him for his
conduct at Valenciennes. He later acted as the General’s
aide-de-camp in the West Indies, before accompanying
him on the Egyptian campaign. Wounded at Rosetta he
overheard from some French prisoners that the garrison
at Cairo was weak, passed the information to Gen. Lord
Hutchinson and thus ensured the speedy reduction of
the city. As a result of this he was promoted major in July
1803. Subsequent dealings with various patriot groups in
the Peninsula led Wellington to distrust him and he was
passed over for various staff and active service postings.
Despite this he was promoted colonel and appointed as
aide-de-camp to the Prince Regent, being knighted and
made CB after the war. This is his chatty and entertaining
memoir of conditions in Egypt at the time of the defeat
of the French, which includes a panorama of Aboukir Bay
and a splendid plate of an officer of the Dromedary Corps.
Catalogue 57: Travel Section 2: Africa and the Middle East to Persia
2 2
Atabey 360.
41. DURNFORD, Anthony
William.
A Soldier’s Life and Work in South
Africa. 1872–1879. A Memoir of
the Late Colonel A.W. Durnford.
Edited by his Brother, Lieut.-Colonel
E[dward] Durnford, Part Author of
the “History of the Zulu War and its
Origin”.
London, Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1882 [39087]
£975
8vo. Original red decorative cloth, rebacked in red cloth with
a tan morocco label. Mounted “Woodburytype” photograph
portrait frontispiece and folding coloured map. Light
browning, a couple of pages reinforced at the fore-edge, a few
neat annotations to the text, map with one or two short splits
A memoir
of Egypt
in 1803
at the folds, one old paper tape repair verso, but overall very
good, the cloth a little rubbed and spotted.
FIRST EDITION. Uncommon account of Durnford’s service
in South Africa, an apologia edited by his brother: “The
court of inquiry into the loss of the camp duly attributed
most of the blame for the defeat to Durnford’s rash
conduct. This was hardly surprising since Chelmsford’s
staff were determined to make Durnford the scapegoat
for the disaster. His brother Lieutenant-Colonel Edward
Durnford and Frances Colenso endeavoured through their
writings and public lobbying to rehabilitate his reputation.
They did not wholly succeed. Durnford’s heroic death did
much to blunt public criticism of him, but there can be
little doubt that his actions contributed materially to the
disaster at Isandlwana. As Sir Theophilus Shepstone wrote
of him, Durnford was ‘as plucky as a lion but as imprudent
as a child’” (ODNB).
Mendelssohn II, pp. 497–8.