Beschreibung:

IRBY, Charles Leonard (traveller in the Levant, 1789-1845). Series of 39 autograph letters signed, and one fragment, addressed to his sister Elizabeth and his father Frederick Irby, 2nd Baron Boston, Narcissus at Spithead and St John's Newfoundland, Conquistador in Douarnenez Bay, Thames off Chat Island, New Orleans, Brussels, Spa, Strasbourg, Bern, Geneva, Leghorn, 'In the Convent of Damascus', and various locations in France, England, Italy, Greece and elsewhere, 15 September 1806 - 31 August 1824, INCLUDING AN IMPORTANT LETTER OF 12 CLOSE-WRITTEN PAGES DESCRIBING HIS PIONEERING EXPLORATION OF SYRIA IN 1818, together approximately 150 pages, 4to , integral address panels, stitched into a single gathering (some wear and tears to margins); with a related manuscript by Elizabeth Irby, listing dates of her brother's letters.
IRBY, Charles Leonard (traveller in the Levant, 1789-1845). Series of 39 autograph letters signed, and one fragment, addressed to his sister Elizabeth and his father Frederick Irby, 2nd Baron Boston, Narcissus at Spithead and St John's Newfoundland, Conquistador in Douarnenez Bay, Thames off Chat Island, New Orleans, Brussels, Spa, Strasbourg, Bern, Geneva, Leghorn, 'In the Convent of Damascus', and various locations in France, England, Italy, Greece and elsewhere, 15 September 1806 - 31 August 1824, INCLUDING AN IMPORTANT LETTER OF 12 CLOSE-WRITTEN PAGES DESCRIBING HIS PIONEERING EXPLORATION OF SYRIA IN 1818, together approximately 150 pages, 4to , integral address panels, stitched into a single gathering (some wear and tears to margins); with a related manuscript by Elizabeth Irby, listing dates of her brother's letters. Charles Irby and his bosom friend Captain James Mangles, both formerly of the Royal Navy, left England in summer 1816 'intending to tour the continent. The journey was extended far beyond their original plan. They visited Egypt, went up the Nile ... went across the desert and along the coast ... and reached Aleppo, where they met William John Bankes and Thomas Legh, who with themselves were the earliest of modern explorers of Syria. Thence they travelled to Palmyra, Damascus, down the Jordan valley, and so to Jerusalem' (ODNB), eventually returning to Marseilles via Acre, Constantinople and Cyprus. Irby's very lengthy letter of 17 February 1818 in the present group, written from 'the Convent of Damascus', describes the key section from Aleppo to Damascus, with descriptions of the towns and sites visited (including a long survey of Palmyra, with which however he is not much impressed), accounts of their wrangling with potential guides and picturesque scenes such as the passage of a caravan of returning hadjis , the auction of captured Georgian slave girls and the splendid set-piece of a feast with Sheik Nasser en route to Palmyra, concluding with a summary of the manners and customs of the Bedouin: the letter, somewhat rewritten, forms the basis of 'Letter III' in Irby and Mangles's Travels in Egypt and Nubia, Syria, and Asia Minor; during the years 1817 & 1818 , initially printed for private distribution in 1823. The remaining letters in the present group describe their outward and return journeys through France, Italy and Austria between 1816 and 1820, with a few relating to Irby's earlier naval service (including one written just after the Battle of New Orleans in 1815), or to later travels.