Sandys Travells, Containing an History of the Original and Present State of the Turkish Empire... The Sixth Edition.
London: printed for Rob. Clavel, Tho. Passinger [et al.], 1670. Small folio (29.8 by 19.2 cm). Collation: A3 B-X6 (= 123 leaves); [6], 240 pp; extra engraved title-page, double-suite engraved map of the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant; folding engraved view of Constaninople, 47 engravings in the text, woodcut initials and ornaments. Recent full paneled polished calf to style, spine with raised bands lettered in gilt. Light staining at both title-pages; bottom corner engraved title dog-eared with slight chip; text lightly toned, with intermittent light to moderate spotting, stains and smudges (mostly marginal); 2 chips at folding map, one just encroaching upon the outer rule. A good copy in a handsome period-style binding.
Sixth edition of one of the best selling seventeenth-century travel accounts to appear in the English language. First printed in 1615 at London by Richard Field for the bookseller William Barret, no fewer than nine printings comprising seven stated "editions" appeared through 1673. The original title, A Relation of a Iourney Begun An: Dom: 1610, was changed to Sandys Travailes with the fifth edition of 1652.
The writer and traveller George Sandys (1578-1644) set out for Europe and the Levant in 1610, arriving in Paris in the aftermath of the assassination of Henri IV. He embarked at Venice for the voyage to Constantiople later that year. "In his subsequent description of the Ottoman empire, he makes one of the first references to coffee, which Francis Bacon and Robert Burton both reproduced. In January 1611 Sandys took a ship to Alexandria, reaching Cairo on camelback. He later presented some figurines of the Egyptian gods to John Tradescant. From Cairo he travelled overland to Jerusalem, beating off an assault by desert Arabs on the way, and arrived in the city for the great Easter celebrations; he was probably back in England by March 1612, returning via southern Italy"... Sandys was an observant, inquisitive traveller and his description of the foreign cultures he encountered is remarkable for moderation and tolerance. In this work he became the first English writer to discredit the medieval belief that Jews emit an unsavoury odour (D. S. Katz, Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1603–1655, 1982, 170). He also evinces something of the ecumenical interests which had formed the burden of his brother Sir Edwin's earlier Relation of the State of Religion in the Western Partes of the World (1605): George Sandys's description of the gathering of Christian sects from all corners of the Old World for the Easter festivities of 1611 celebrates a brief moment of Christian unity in a divided world. A Relation of a Journey was widely influential as a source of information on the Near East; it was used by Ben Jonson, Francis Bacon, Robert Burton, Sir Thomas Browne, Abraham Cowley, and John Milton among others" (ODNB). Blackmer notes that the Travells was in its day "the most elaborately illustrated English book on the Levant" and Sandys was regarded by his contemporaries as a "special authority" on the region. Item #55734
References: J. Ellison, "Sandys, George" [in:] ODNB online; ESTC R15984; Wing S-679. Cf. Blackmer 1484 (earlier ed.)
Full title and imprint: Sandys Travells, Containing an history of the Original and present state of the Turkish Empire: their laws, government, policy, military force, courts of justice, and commerce: the Mahometan Religion and Ceremonies: a Description of Constantinople, the Grand Signior's seraglio, and his manner of living: also, of Greece, with the Religion and Customes of the Grecians. Of Aegypt; the antiquity, hieroglyphicks, rites customes, discipline, and religion of the Aegyptians. A Voyage on the River Nylus: of Armenia, Grand Cairo, Rhodes, the Pyramides, Colossus; the former flourishing and present state of Alexandria. A description of the Holy-Land; of the Jews, and several sects of Christians living there; of Jerusalem, Sepulchre of Christ, Temple of Solomon; and what else either of antiquity, or worth observation. Lastly, Italy described, and the islands adjoyning; as Cyprus, Crete, Malta, Sicilia, the Aeolian Islands; of Rome, Venice, Naples, Syracusa, Mesena, Aetna, Scylla and Charybdis; and other places of note. Illustrated with fifty graven maps and figures. The Sixth Edition. London: printed for Rob. Clavel, Tho. Passinger, Will. Cadman, Will. Whitwood, Tho. Sawbridge, and Will. Birch, 1670.
Price: $2,500.00