CONDER, Josiah. The Modern Traveller … Burmah, Siam, &c. [on half-title]. London, James Duncan, 1830.
12mo. Contemporary half-morocco over marbled boards, spine ruled, numbered and lettered in gilt; pp. [2], iv, 367, folding engraved map, three engraved plates; light toning and discolouration here and there, more so to engravings; a very good copy with 20th-century German bookplate.
Rare. Second edition of the sum of the topographical and geographical knowledge of Myanmar (the bulk of the book) and Thailand in the first half of the 19th century. In 1824 the bookseller and writer Josiah Conder (1789-1822) had 'entered into an agreement with James Duncan of Paternoster Row to edit the afterwards well-known series of the Modern Traveller, undertaking in the first instance to furnish the volume on Palestine only. Ultimately he compiled the whole set of thirty volumes (1825–9), having assistance in only one or two of them. The series was successful, despite the fact of its editor's never having left his native country' (ODNB). 'It was one part of the plan, so to arrange the volumes that the description of any country might be sold peparately' (author's preface the first volume in the 30-volume series). - The rarity of this particular volume in the series is probably due to the sudden demand of books on the region when the East India Company envisaged an expansion eastwards.
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