First Edition in Original Cloth
Oriental and Western Siberia:. A Narrative of Seven Years' Explorations and Adventures in Siberia, Mongolia, the Kirghis Steppes, Chinese Tartary, and Part of Central Asia. With a Map and Numerous Illustrations.
London: Hurst and Blackett, Publishers, 1858.
First edition. Thick octavo (9 7/8 x 6 1/4 inches; 250 x 160 mm). viii, (4), 611, [1, blank], [8 publisher's ads] pp. With twenty lithographic plates, including frontispiece, one folding map and numerous illustrations in the text. Plates with tissue guards.
Publisher's full morocco grain green cloth. Front board pictorially stamped in gilt. Spine stamped and lettered in gilt. Previous owner's small signature on front free endpaper. Some very minor shelfwear to head and tail of spine. Overall a near fine copy.
Atkinson was a British architect and artist. "Inspired by Alexander von Humboldt's accounts of Siberia, Atkinson then moved to St Petersburg, after a short stay in Berlin. There, in 1846, he abandoned architecture as a profession for the pursuits of an explorer and topographical artist. Between March and November 1847 he travelled to the Urals, the Kirgiz steppes, and Altai Mountains. He then returned to Moscow and on 18 February 1848 married Lucy Sherrard Finley, a governess, with whom he had a son, Alatau Tamchiboulac... Between 1848 and 1853 he travelled extensively in the Russian orient, gathering much geographical and geological information. During this time he produced over 500 watercolours of the landscapes and peoples, some of them 5 or 6 feet square. He wintered in Irkutsk and Barnaul. After his return to Britain, an exhibition of Atkinson's Siberian and Chinese Tartar scenes was held in 1856 at Colnaghi's Gallery, London. Some of these were lithographed and published in his narratives of his travels: Oriental and western Siberia: a narrative of seven years' explorations and adventures in Siberia, Mongolia, the Kirghis steppes, Chinese Tartary, and part of central Asia. With a map and numerous illustrations (1858)."
HBS 68682.
$1,000.
Price: $1,000.00
Item #68682