“THIS IMPORTANT WORK WAS THE EARLIEST ATTEMPT AT AN ELABORATE DESCRIPTION OF EGYPT”: FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF NORDEN’S RICHLY ILLUSTRATED LARGE FOLIO TRAVELS IN EGYPT AND NUBIA, 1757, WITH 164 FINE ENGRAVINGS

(EGYPT) NORDEN, Frederick Lewis. Travels in Egypt and Nubia… London: for Lockyer Davis and Charles Reymers, 1757. Two volumes in one. Large thick folio (12 inches by 17-1/2 inches), 19th-century full black straight-grain morocco neatly rebacked, retaining marbled endpapers, all edges gilt.

First edition in English, beautifully illustrated with two engraved frontispieces (including a portrait of Norden), 162 handsome large folio copper-engraved landscapes, views of monuments and ruins, architectural plans and maps, as well as numerous engraved vignette head- and tailpieces. The first detailed survey of Egypt by a European and one of the most important.

Norden’s Travels was the first detailed survey of Egypt by a European and the most important prior to the Description de l’Egypte. He landed at Alexandria in 1737, surveyed the course of the Nile below the First Cataract and made close observations of the pyramids. “Norden was the first European to penetrate as far as Derr in Nubia and to publish descriptions of any Nubian temples. This important work was the earliest attempt at an elaborate description of Egypt, and its plates are the most significant previous to those by Denon” (Blackmer). “Egypt’s monuments gradually became better known through the work of scholars in Europe and travelers in the country itself; the finest publications of the latter were by Pococke, Norden and Niebuhr, all of whose works in the 18th century helped to stimulate an Egyptian revival in European art and architecture” (Britannica). “Norden is the first writer who published a picturesque description of Egypt: every subsequent traveler has borne evidence to the accuracy and fidelity of his researches and descriptions” (Lowndes, 1697). Norden’s journals from his Egyptian expedition were translated from his original Danish manuscripts into French and published in 1755 as Voyage d’Egypte et de Nubie. Templeman published his English translation in folio in 1757 complete with all the engravings from the original French edition. Text embellished with numerous engraved head- and tailpieces and initials. Complete with half title. Cox I, 382-83. Blackmer 1211. Discreet inkstamp of King’s Inns Library, Dublin, on verso of title page.

Tiny hole through half title, frontispiece and title page expertly repaired; plates generally clean and fine, with only faint offsetting to text. Upper corner of front cover bumped. An extremely good copy of this scarce and early work on Egypt, richly illustrated and attractively bound.