Lot 635: BURCHELL, William John (1781-1863). Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa. London: A.

BURCHELL, William John (1781-1863). Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa. London: A. and R. Spottiswoode for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1822-1824.

2 volumes, 4° (279 x 218mm). 20 hand-coloured aquatint plates, 5 folding, one folding engraved map hand-coloured in outline, and illustrations all after the author. Letterpress tables. Errata slip tipped onto I/B1r. (Some light spotting and browning, occasional inkmarking, light offsetting affecting plates, map laid down on linen, lacking final blank, 4E4, in vol. I.) Straight-grained brown morocco gilt by Riviere and Son, top edges gilt, others uncut (spines slightly faded). Provenance: Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant (1803-1874, inscriptions on margins variously dated 'Cape Town. C of Good Hope 1827', 'Fort Beaufort Kat River Kaffraria 1830', 'Lt General and Governor of Malta Palace Valetta 1858') -- Edward Joseph Dent (1876-1957, bookplates).

FIRST EDITION. 'THE MOST VALUABLE AND ACCURATE WORK ON SOUTH AFRICA PUBLISHED UP TO THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY... NOW EXTREMELY SCARCE' (Mendelssohn). Burchell set out from Cape Town in June 1811 on his travels in Africa, and covered 4,500 miles in the interior, returning to the Cape in April 1815 with natural history specimens and five hundred drawings (of which a small selection were engraved to illustrate the present work). This copy was previously in the library of the soldier and colonial administrator Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant, who served as an officer in South Africa in the latter 1820s and early 1830s, before holding a series of administrative positions in Canada, Malta and India. It later belonged to the eminent musicologist and critic Edward Joseph Dent who was possibly interested in the passages on indigenous African music. 750 copies of volume I were printed and 500 of volume II. Although Tooley calls for half-titles and the 4-page 'Hints on Emigration', Abbey suggests that these were only included in some copies. Abbey Travel I, 327; Mendelssohn I, p.224; Tooley 116. (2)

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