[VANE, Charles William Stewart, third] Marquess of LONDONDERRY. Recollections of a Tour in The North of Europe in 1836-1837. London: Richard Bentley. 1838.
Two volumes, Royal 8vo. Publisher's original ribbed cloth, spines lettered in gilt, boards ornamented in blind; pp. xii, 275; vii, 228; five steel-engraved portraits, 2 folding lithographic plans (Moscow and St. Petersburg); cloth a little faded, a few engravings with brown spotting, otherwise only a little toned or spotted, a very good copy.
First edition, first issue (not the one with Thomas Tegg's 1843 advertisements bound in). Duke of Wellington's former Adjutant-General from 1809-12, and then ambassador to Vienna, in the hope of becoming ambassador to Russia undertook this journey via France, Holland, Denmark, Germany, and Sweden to Russia, hob-knobbing with Royalty on the way and visiting noble friends. After long sojourns in the two major cities the Marquess of Londonderry moves to Odessa, visits the Black Sea Povinces and the Ural mountains. He manged to gather a lot of material on the economic development of Russia, population and the institutions, which aims at a pretty complete picture of the Russian Empire in the 1830s.
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