The Traveller's Guide Through Scotland and It's Islands

Brown leather spine and corners. Marbled paper to boards. Gilt banding and lettering to spine. Fraying and rubbing along edges of boards, with some minor losses to marbled paper on front board. Minor patch repair (approx 1cm square) to spine. Moderate staining to main title page. Hinges cracking at main title page, but all pages are secure, being very tight elsewhere. Some mild staining to last few index pages and rear end papers. A very scarce item. I can find no other copies of this age. Later editions were split into two volumes each comprising of approximately 280 pages. This edition comprises of 795 pages, including indexes. There is a large fold-out black and white map at the front of the book, measuring approximately 50cm x 40cm. There are two closed tears on the map edges, one of approx 9cm near to the hinge and the other of approx 2cm along the bottom edge. The map was engraved by J Menzies, apparently for 'The Topography of Scotland'. The publisher, John Thomson Junior, was a cartographer of note and a publisher of his own maps and books, suggesting that the book was written by Thomson himself. Thomson later produced many books of maps of the world and of Scotland. A preface in the book is dated 1st August 1805, and refers to no other previous editions, reinforcing my belief that this is a genuine first edition. The preface refers to 12 smaller maps within the book, of counties.These twelve black and white maps are all present (in later editions these maps were hand coloured). The book measure 18 cms x 11 1/2 cms.…