Innermost Asia. Detailed Report of Exploration in Central Asia, Kan-Su and Eastern Iran. Carried out and Described under the Orders of H.M. Indian Government.

First edition of this comprehensive scientific report of Stein's 1913-16 expedition, during which he travelled to Kashgar and Khotan, and across the Pei-shan, the Turfan depression, and the Pamirs to Samarkand, before turning south through eastern Persia to Baluchistan. As with Stein's other expedition publications, the work is superbly produced and presented. "Stein's great achievement. was to establish the existence of a hitherto lost civilization along the Silk Route in Chinese central Asia. Despite the fact that better-financed expeditions from Germany and France (led by Professor Albert Grunwedel and Albert von Le Coq, and Paul Pelliot respectively) worked in the same area, Stein was the first archaeologist to discover evidence of the spread of the Graeco-Buddhist culture of north-west India across Chinese Turkestan and into China itself" (ODNB). Howgego III S65; Yakushi S720. 3 vols, quarto, and custom map case. With 505 half-tone illustrations from photographs (some on folding sheets) in text vols, 138 plates (a few in colour) and 59 plans in third vol.; 52 folding maps (four tabbed A-D and in printed envelope) housed in map case. Vols in original brownish-red cloth, spines and front covers lettered in gilt, front covers with embossed gilt roundel showing Athena with arm outstretched brandishing the aegis incorporating the gorgoneion (Stein's personal emblem), fore and bottom edges untrimmed. Recent brownish-red cloth map case with spine label, standing in for original map case (no longer present). Vols generally clean and fresh, extremities a little bumped, index map in custom case creased and marked, a few others lightly worn as expected: a very good set.…