Charles M. Wanderings in Arabia ... being an Abridgement of "Travels in Arabia Deserta". Arranged with Introduction by Edward Garnett.

by DOUGHTY

£1,200 · Offered by Henry Sotheran Ltd

DOUGHTY, Charles M. Wanderings in Arabia ... being an Abridgement of "Travels in Arabia Deserta". Arranged with Introduction by Edward Garnett. London: Duckworth Co. 1908. Two volumes, 8vo. Publisher's original green cloth, lettered in gilt to spine, top edges gilt; pp. xx, 309; x, 297; photogravure frontispiece of Doughty to vol. I, wood-engraved frontispiece to vol. II, 1 double-page map; some chipping to head and tail of spines, foxing at front and rear of each volume; this is a rare inscribed copy presented by the author to the medieval scholar G.G. Coulton, signed to that effect on half-title of volume I. First abridged edition. Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta was first published in 1888, but abridged by Garnett in the present form. Doughty's journey, undertaken between 1875 and 1878, "did much to advance knowledge of north-western and central Arabia' (Henze). He was the first European to see the city of Mada'in Salih, near the northern border of Hejaz, crossed the expanse of Arabia to Jeddah, and returned via Bombay. Doughty's "unique style of English, which [he] vehemently refused to have edited", led to four commercial presses turning down his manuscript before the Cambridge University Press agreed to publish it in 1888. "The result was one of the great classics of travel literature which, although exceptionally demanding for the reader, passed through numerous reprintings" (Howgego III, p. 246). The geological and geographical descriptions are of such accuracy an

• Binding: Hardcover

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