PENNANT, Thomas. A tour in Scotland; MDCCLXIX … Third Edition. Warrington: W. Eyres. 1774.
[with:] A tour in Scotland, and voyage to the Hebrides; MDCCLXXII. Chester: John Monk. 1774.
[with:] A tour in Scotland. MDCCLXXII. Part II. London: Benj. White. 1776.
Three volumes, 4to. All in contemporary calf, gilt fillet to boards, rebacked to style, spines gilt in compartments and lettered directly in gilt; vol. I: pp. xiii, [1], 388, [2 (advertisement leaf)], with engraved vignette title, folding engraved map of Scotland, 21 engraved plates (8 folding) and one engraved illustration in text; vol.II: pp. [2], viii, 379, [1], with engraved vignette title, 44 engraved plates (28 folding); vol. III: pp. [2], iv, 481, [1 (blank)], 34,with engraved vignette title, 47 engraved plates (23 folding); all volumes with extremities a little worn, boards slightly rubbed, corners restored; some variable light spotting and offsetting, closed tears to inner margin of map (restored), but generally very good. Provenance: ‘W. Watton 1790’ to titles; nineteenth-century armorial bookplates of Charles Rutherford, with name cancelled and replaced in manuscript with ‘James Simson Melrose July 1852’, to front pastedowns.
First quarto edition, third edition overall, illustrated with new plates of Thomas Pennant’s Tour in Scotland in 1769, and first edition of his 1772 tour in two volumes, including brief ‘Additions’ to the first book. Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) was a naturalist, traveller, and writer from Flintshire, Wales. In 1769, he undertook a tour of Scotland, with a focus on the highlands, a region largely unknown to outsiders but of great interest for its natural history. Two years later, he published the account of his journey. Motivated by the book’s positive reception, Pennant embarked on a second tour in 1772. Meticulously organised, this second tour complemented his earlier one, and culminated his efforts to describe and understand Scotland. Pennant’s 1772 Tour influenced Samuel Johnson, who was then writing his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), much like the 1769 Tour had prompted Johnson’s Hebridean travels with Scotsman James Boswell.
Together, these three volumes are illustrated with 113 engravings, drawn by Moses Griffiths, Paul Sandby, Francois-Germain Aliamet and others, and engraved by the Irish artist Peter Mazell. The map in vol. I was produced by the London cartographer and engraver John Bayly. As often, vol. III contains the ‘Additions to the Tour in Scotland, MDCCLXIX’, which was probably printed separately in 1774, but has its plates included in the main volume’s plate-list.
ESTC T113910, T113907, T113911, T113908 (for the ‘Additions to the Tour in Scotland’).
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