The Grand Tour
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967. Item #1555 8vo. 220 x 150 mm., [8 ¾ x 5 ¾ inches]. xii + 251 pp., with eight unnumbered leaves of plates inserted between pages of text containing twenty-six b&w illustrations and an additional seven b&w woodcut illustrations within the text. Short Bibliography and an Index added at the end. Publishers’ illustrated paper over boards with a design in full color showing a carriage full of spirited travelers; decorated green endpapers with a map of John Evelyn and James Boswell’s Grand Tour route; unclipped illustrated dust jacket. Book is Fine: very minor soiling and shelf wear on the paper covers but otherwise in outstanding condition. Jacket is Fine: thin crease along the spine with minor soiling and shelf wear but equally in excellent condition with the cover illustration still remarkably vivid and bright. An exemplary copy. First Edition. Geoffrey Trease (1909-1998) was a British writer who wrote some of Britain’s most well-known children’s books including Bows Against the Barons (1934) and Cue for Treason (1940). He also wrote many notable non-fiction works for adults. Among these a set of travel writings focused on England as well as several biographies of famous Britons like Samuel Pepys, D. H. Lawrence, and William Cavendish. The Grand Tour is a concise, narrative history of the British aristocratic practice of taking a “Grand Tour” through Europe. It follows many of the most famous of these tourists including Philip Sidney, John Milton, James Boswell, and Edward Gibbon among several others and covers their often terribly extravagant practices and behaviors.
Price: $50.00