CONDER, Josiah. The Modern Traveller … Syria and Asia Minor. [on half-title]. London, James Duncan, 1830.
Two volumes, 12mo. Near contemporary half-morocco over marbled boards, spines ruled, numbered and lettered in gilt; pp. [2], iv, 354; [2], iv, 356, two folding engraved maps, six engraved plates; light toning and discolouration here and there, a little spotting to illustrations; a very good set with 20th-century German bookplates.
Second edition of the sum of the topographical and geographical knowledge of the Lebanon, Syria and Anatolia in the first half of the 19th century. Syria and Lebanon fill the first volume, and extend up to page 89 in volume two. 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).
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