1857 Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah

Description

Colour Plates, Early Edition, Illustrated, Leather Binding

The second edition. Complete in two volumes. Uniformly bound in smart half calf by Geo. Quinton. Volume one has a colour frontispiece, three colour plates and two folding maps. The plate titled, 'Plan of Haram', which should be on page 294, has been bound into volume two, on page 97. Collated complete. Volume two has a colour frontispiece, eight full-page plates and one folding map. Collated complete. Richard F. Burton's famous account of his journey to the Islamic holy cities of Al Medinah and Mecca, undertaken in disguise as a Muslim at a time when non-Muslims were strictly forbidden. This is widely regarded as Burton's most famous work, and although he was not the first non-Muslim European to undertake the Hajj pilgrimage, his account is the most famous and best documented. Richard Francis Burton was a British explorer, writer, orientalist scholar and soldier, who wrote numerous publications regarding languages and cultures around the world. He was a Captain for the East India Company, and an active member of the Royal Geographical Society, where he became the first European to see Lake Tanganyika in Africa. Each volume has a bookplate for, 'Sir Willoughby Jones Baronet', to the front paste-down. The half title page is present in volume two but not in volume one.