Harris, W. Cornwallis, The Highlands of Aethiopia Described, During Eighteen Months’ Residence of a British Embassy at the Christian Court of Shoa, Longman, Green, Brown, and Longmans 1844

Title: The Highlands of Aethiopia Described, During Eighteen Months’ Residence of a British Embassy at the Christian Court of Shoa
Author: Harris, W. Cornwallis
Illustrator: W. Cornwallis Harris et al.
Publisher: Longman, Green, Brown, and Longmans
Year published: 1844
Place of Publication: London
Book Condition: Near Fine
Size: 8vo
Binding: Rebound
Edition: First

Notes: W. Cornwallis Harris (Major Harris), The Highlands of Aethiopia Described, During Eighteen Months’ Residence of a British Embassy at the Christian Court of Shoa (3 vols., London: Longman, Green, Brown, and Longmans, 1844), xvii, [2], 428 + 32 pp. of publisher’s advertisements; xi, 430; xi, 436. 8vo. 1st edition. Rebound in brown cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Fingerprint on p. 52 of vol. 2 and similar mark on p. 319 of vol. 3, slight foxing and browning to opening pages of each volume, folding map in front of vol. 1 torn in two places with no loss, tissue guard for title page of vol. 2 repaired with tape, the equivalent tissue guard in vol. 3 missing; numerical stamp, with markings and numbers written in pen, at the foot of the final page of each volume. Otherwise a bright and clean copy. Wood-engraved vignettes to title pages, tinted lithographic frontispiece to vols. 1 and 2, hand-coloured lithographic frontispiece to vol. 3, chromolithographic dedication leaf to Queen Victoria in vol. 1. A rare first edition of this important early ‘epic’ of British exploration in Ethiopia (a second edition appeared the same year), also an example of the pioneering chromolithographic method of Charles Hullmandel (seen in the dedicatory frontispiece in vol. 1).