LEGENDRE, Sidney J. Land of the White Parasol. A Journey through the Jungles of Indo-China … Illustrated from photographs by Gertrude Legendre. London, Rich & Cowan Ltd., [1936].
8vo. Original cloth with illustrated dust-wrappers (not price-clipped), map endpapers; pp. x, 315, frontispiece and 23 photographic images on plates; apart from light marginal wear to wrapper; a very good copy.
Uncommon first edition, even more so in the wrappers. This is the UK issue, using the original US sheets printed by the Vail-Ballou Press in Binghampton, NY. 'An account of the Legendre Expedition into Indo-China, under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History. Legendre, his wife, and Donald Carter, the naturalist, comprised the party. Most interesting and amusing travel story. The author has a fine sense of humor and almost no scientific dignity, to mar the story-telling quality of his narrative for the layman. Numerous incidents of special interest are illustrated by photographs. The style is lighter and more entertaining than Roy Chapman Andrews, to whom he is most apt to be compared. Appeal largely to men and to the few women interested in such adventure' (contemporary review. Today one could do without the last sentence, written in 1936). The Expedition, supported by Theodore Rosoevelt, travelled widely through Laos and Vietnam in search of moufflon, however resulted in collecting other natural history specimens and this well-written book on the two countries under French colonial rule.
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