BOEHM, Sir Edgar Collins. The Persian Gulf and South Sea Isles. London, Horace Cox, 1904.
8vo. Original blue cloth, lettered in gilt; pp. xii, [4], 180, plates after photographs; light browning to endpapers with offsetting to adjacent pages, name on half title, otherwise very good.
First edition, very rare. The son of one of the most celebrated Victorian sculptors and medallists embarked on a rather unusual tour. In 1901 he travelled with a civil servant from the embassy at Constantinople 'to try a British subject in Baghdad' (p. vii). Off the beaten track he visits Muscat and Bahrain, Basrah and the Marsh Arbas, Baghdad, the Euprates and Kerbala, Amara, then hopping over to the Persian side of the Gulf, venturing inland before returning to Muscat. The second part of the book, starting on p. 105 is a journey from New Zealand to the South sea islands of Tonga, the Vava'u island group, Samoa, and Fiji, with encounters of cannibals and two plates depicting them going about their business.
COPAC lists copies at SOAS, in the BL, at Oxford, in the London Library and in the National Library of Scotland only.
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