CONDER, Josiah. The Modern Traveller … Palestine; or, the Holy Land. London, James Duncan, 1824.
12mo. Contemporary full calf, spine with raised bands and two contrasting lettering-pieces, compartments ornamented in gilt, boards with gilt-ruled double-fillet and ornamented in blind; pp. vi, 372, folding engraved map, engraved plan, two engraved plates (bound without half-title); light toning and discolouration here and there; a very good copy with 19th-century bookplate and contemporary bibliographical annotation in ink to front fly-leaf.
First edition of the sum of the topographical and geographical knowledge of the Holy Land 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 in this, the first volume in the 30-volume series, 2nd edition).
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