HEUDE, William

A Voyage up the Persian Gulf and a Journey Overland from India to England, in 1817: Containing Notices of Arabia Felix, Arabia Deserta, Persia, Mesopotamia, the Garden of Eden, Babylon, Bagdad, Koordistan, Armenia, Asia Minor, &c. &c.

London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819. 4to. (10 5/8 x 8 5/16 inches). x, 252 pp. Illustrated with 4 uncoloured aquatint plates.

Contemporary full straight-grain tan morocco bound by Hemington, Ingram Court, Fenchurch Street, London. Neatly rebacked, spine with raised bands forming six compartments, tooled gilt, red morocco lettering piece in the second compartment

Provenance: Armorial bookplate and signature of the Hon. Hugh Lindsay

A rare first edition of Heude’s account of his 1817 overland return from India to England, passing through the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, Armenia, and Asia Minor, with contemporary East India Company provenance.

Heude was a lieutenant in the Madras Military Establishment, and later Surgeon-Major, whose journey formed part of the wider early nineteenth-century British interest in overland routes between India, the Gulf, and Europe. Heude's route begins on the Malabar Coast, from Cannanore (now Kannur) to Bombay (Mumbai), before continuing by sea along the Arabian coast to Muscat, through the Persian Gulf to Bushehr, (or Bushire) and Basra. From there he travelled inland by way of Korna (now Qurna or Al-Qurnah), Babylon, Baghdad, Kurdistan, Mosul, Mardin, and Constantinople. The work's range is unusually broad, combining travel narrative with observations on trade, local government, desert travel, tribal society, antiquities, and the political condition of the Ottoman provinces through which Heude passed. Heude's preface presents the journey as a personal undertaking made under difficult conditions and with limited assistance. Heude states that he travelled "entirely alone," apart from servants and local assistance, and that the route was made more hazardous by the "turbulence of the times." The account is particularly valuable for its observations on Baghdad during a period of political instability. The book is also notable for its treatment of the historical geography of Mesopotamia. Heude discusses the traditional identification of the Garden of Eden near the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates, and describes Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Mosul, and traces of Nineveh through a mixture of first-hand observation, classical reference, and biblical-historical association. These passages place the work within the early nineteenth-century literature of travel that linked military movement, antiquarian curiosity, and imperial communication across the regions between India and the Mediterranean.

Blackmer 811; Atabey 576 (first French edition, 1820); Wilson p. 96; not in Abbey.

Item #42639

Price: $10,000.00