CHISHULL, Edmund. Travels in Turkey and back to England. London, printed by W. Bowyer, 1747.
Folio. Contemporary sprinkled calf, spine with raised bands and gilt-stamped lettering-piece, boards with gilt-ruled double-fillets; pp. viii, [4, subscribers' list], 192; hinges a little worn, but holding firm, front fly-leaf with repaired central flaw, a little browning and offsetting from endpapers, otherwise a vaery clean and crisp copy from the library of John Pollexfen Bastard (1756-1816).
Privately printed first edition of this travel diary of the chaplain to the Factory of the Worshipful Turkey Company at Smyrna through parts of the Ottoman Empire between 1699 and 1701, posthumously edited by his son. It contains accounts of journeys to Ionia, the Troad, Constantinople, Adrianople and Ephesus. 'In 1698 Chishull received the grant of ‘the traveller's place’ (Chalmers, 285), a fellowship which permitted him to travel from Oxford. His plans to visit Asia Minor were changed when a sermon he preached before the Levant Company brought the offer of the chaplaincy to the English factory at Smyrna. It was an agreeable post, which afforded a library, free house and food, and an income that enabled him to save upwards of £100 a year. However, his congregation in Smyrna consisted of 'single men of uncontrolled liberty and violent inclinations accustomed to getting and bred up in the arts of gain' (Fowler, 268). His time at Smyrna allowed him to tour Ephesus and visit Constantinople; these visits stimulated his later scholarship. Chishull resigned the chaplaincy on 12 February 1702 and travelled to Britain in the household of Lord Paget, ambassador to the Porte, which gave him the opportunity to visit much of Europe. In 1703 he was appointed lecturer of St Olave's, Hart Street, London; in 1705 or 1706 he married, and resigned his fellowship at Oxford' (ODNB). His return to England was through Wallachia and Hungary. - Atabey notes that copies bearing the imprint "W. Bowyer", as here, were large paper copies, of which only 25 were printed. This assertion, based on Maslen's The Bowyer Ledgers, 1991, seems unlikely.
Provenance: The Bastards are one of the oldest landed Devon families. John Pollexfen Bastard 'was the fiercely independent MP for Devon, 1784-1816, and Colonel of the East Devon Militia. Although he married twice, he produced no children, and in 1815 his declining health made him seek a warmer climate. He died at Leghorn (Livorno in Italy) the following year, and his body was shipped back to England for burial' (Landed Families of Britain and Ireland, blog).
Atabey 240 ('according to Maslin one thousand copies were printed, with the imprint 'W. Bowyer' indicating large paper copies, of which only 25 were printed. Ordinary copies bear the imprint William Bowyer'); Blackmer 341; ESTC T150186.
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