Sandys, George

A relation of a Journey begun An: Dom: 1610. Four bookes. Containing a description of the Turkish Empire of Ægypt, of the Holy Land, of the Remote parts of Italy, and Islands adjoyning. The 6th Edition. [Sandys Travells]

London: for Philip Chetwin [and Robert Clavel], 1670. Sixth edition.

Folio in 6s (7 1/8” x 11”, 181mm x 279mm): A⁴ B–X⁶ [$3 signed; A4 signed A3]. 124 leaves, pp. [8] (title, blank, 2pp. epistle dedication, 2pp. to the reader, 2pp. dedication to the prince) 1–240. With an engraved title page, 1 folding map, 1 folding view, and 46 plates integral to the text.

Bound in half brown morocco over marbled boards.

Rebacked, extremities rubbed and pitting to the fore-corners. Endpapers refreshed. Fore-edge of the engraved title page strengthened at the verso. Soiling to the folding map of the Empire. Contemporary ink stamp of “S.A. Crofts” to the recto of the flyleaf. Manuscript ownership inscription of Robert “[?]Wor[nley?]” to the verso of the engraved title page, obliterated and washed ownership inscription just below.

George Sandys (1578–1644) was first and foremost a lover of the Classics, a theologian, and a Late Antiquarian. After incomplete schooling, his family connections permitted him to first travel through Europe, the near East, and later, the American colonies. Sandys’ intellectual pursuits deeply informed his perspectives of the communities he encountered; in his preface he writes, “I have not only related what I saw of their present condition, but…presented a view of their former estates, and first antiquities of those people and countries: thence to draw a right image of the frailty of man, the mutability of whatsoever is worldly.” With a level of observation and analysis uncommon in travel narratives of the time, Sandys’ writing makes for a comprehensive proto-ethnographic study of the regions and was held as the de-facto account of the Eastern Mediterranean well into the 18^th century.

Upon his return, Sandys began a successful career as an author, translator, and literary critic. Sandys Travells was first printed in 1615 by Richard Field for the bookseller William Barret, and no fewer than nine printings comprising seven stated "editions" would appear through 1673. The original title, A Relation of a Iourney Begun An: Dom: 1610, was changed to Sandys Travells with the fifth edition of 1652. Throughout his life, Sandys released his own translations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Virgil’s Aeneid, and Grotius’s Latin account of Christ’s Passion. His final work was a translation of the Songs of Solomon, with verse praised by John Dryden and Alexander Pope. Even a cursory glance at Sandys Travells reveals his early writing as imbued with the classics he later devoted his life to — a fitting honor that his own work would be solidified in the cultural canon he so deeply revered.

ESTC R15984; Blackmer 1484 (not this edition).

Cataloged by G.R. Murdock

Item #GRM0105

Price: $700