SALT, Henry (1780-1827). Twenty-four views in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt. London: William Miller, 1809.

SALT, Henry (1780-1827). Twenty-four views in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia, and Egypt. London: William Miller, 1809.

The first edition of a very fine set of views after drawings by Henry Salt. Salt left London in 1802 for an eastern tour with Lord Valentia. He visited India and Ceylon and in 1805 took part in the first British mission to Abyssinia, sent to conclude an alliance with that country and to secure a port in the Red Sea in case Napoleon succeeded in gaining control of Egypt. Some of his drawings illustrated Valentia's Voyages and Travels to India (1809), published the same year as the present volume. The text to this work (present here only in a bound facsimile) was also ostensibly written by Valentia, but according to Abbey "is said to be by Salt." In his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Byron mocked the "tremendous travels" of "vain Valentia." Salt's original drawings remained in Valentia's possession, and after Salt's death the plates too became his property. Abbey Travel 515; Tooley 440.

Broadsheets (each approximately 559 x 835mm). Tinted lithographed title, 24 hand-colored lithographed plates by D. Havell, I. Bluck, I. Hill and S. Rawle, after Henry Salt, on thick paper made up of two sheets pasted together (small circular stain near gutter of first three plates, plate I with minor crease in sky above main subject, plate VII with diagonal crease in margin, plate XII with tiny hole in sky, some spotting). Later half black morocco, preserving original cloth, morocco cover label and endpapers. [With:] A bound facsimile of the text volume, quarto, cloth.