"ONE OF THE BEST ACCOUNTS OF THE CITY EVER WRITTEN": DE AMICIS' CONSTANTINOPLE, ILLUSTRATED IN PHOTOGRAVURE

(CONSTANTINOPLE) DE AMICIS, Edmondo (LANSDALE, Maria, translator). Constantinople. Translated … by Maria Hornor Lansdale. Philadelphia: Henry Coates, 1896. Two volumes. Octavo, publisher's elaborately gilt-decorated navy cloth, top edges gilt; original cloth dust jackets. $800.

First edition in English of De Amicis' renowned travelogue, illustrated with 50 lovely photogravures and a folding map. A fine copy in the publisher's gilt-decorated cloth and dust jackets.

"'Who would dare to describe Constantinople?' Edmondo de Amicis answered his own rhetorical question with a rich and vivid book about the city, published in 1877. It is, says the translator of this new edition [published in 2013] Stephen Parkin, 'one of the best accounts of the city ever written.' Umberto Eco (who has written the [new edition's] foreword) took his fellow countryman's guide with him when he first visited Istanbul, and Orhan Pamuk has also praised it" (The Guardian, 9/6/2013). The renowned Italian novelist, poet, and journalist De Amicis wrote a number of popular illustrated travel books recounting his journeys to Paris, Morocco, Spain, and Holland, as well as Constantinople. Lansdale's translation helped kindle curiosity among American tourists. First published in Italian in 1887.

Fine condition.