The Traveller … Journey Round the Habitable Globe 1823. This book is titled “The Traveller: Or, An Entertaining Journey Round The Habitable Globe: Being A Novel And Easy Method Of Studying Geography. Illustrated With Forty-Two Plates, Consisting Of Views Of The Principal Capital Cities Of the World, and The Costume Of Its Various Inhabitants”. The book is a second edition printed in London by S. & R. Bentley and published by J. Harris And Son in London circa 1821. WorldCat says the first edition was published in 1820 and the second edition was published in 1821; the colored frontispiece is dated July 1820 at the bottom, so we’re in the right ballpark that the book was published around 1821. The book is 1/4 bound, with horizontal gilt bands with a gilt title and gilt devices on the spine, the title and the publisher’s name in black on the front cover, as well as a black-and-white vignette on the front cover, a small bookseller’s label from Belfast and a bookplate featuring an award from Antrim School on the front paste-down, the bookplate is dated 1823, an inscription on the front flyleaf says “Agnes W. Claflin bought this book in Edinburgh, Aug 1927”, then the half-title, the frontispiece shows the colored costumes of people from France, Italy, Lapland, and Russia, the title page with a black-and white vignette that mimics the vignette on the front cover, a two-page Preface (v - vi), two pages for a Table of Contents, 204 pages of text, there’s another award from Antrim school on the rear paste-down (it was for geography), a black and white vignette of a sailboat or schooner on the back cover, and all forty-two colored plates are present. (There are four colored plates featuring costumes from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and the other colored plates feature two rectangles on each page, with nineteen plates altogether, for a total of thirty-eight other plates.) The book measures 6 7/8 x 4 1/2 in. wide, with a tight binding, light soiling and marks on the front cover, wear and light loss at the heel and crown of the spine, a bump at the base of the spine, rubbing along the edges of the spine and at the tips, two tips are turned in, with offset from the colored plates, occasional brown spots, and some corner creases on a couple of pages. There are only two listed on the rare book website we use - one is a fourth edition in fair condition that goes for $80 and the other is a third edition that has black and white illustrations, rather than colored plates, and that edition goes for $400 - so the book is rare and hard to find, even as a second edition, and a nifty book for someone who might appreciate the history and geography of the world from almost two centuries ago. #166 #4986