guides travel

Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale /Houston Museum of Fine Arts, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 168 pages. Chen Changfen (b. 1941) began to photograph the Great Wall twenty years before the Chinese government officially adopted it as the national symbol in 1984. This fascinating book presents a small fraction of his decades-long study of the monumental form and conveys the fertile range of themes and ideas that Chen has investigated, each informed by traditional Chinese art, history, and philosophy. Combining a unique blend of traditional and contemporary technical processes, Chen's richly evocative photographs at once celebrate the remarkable series of building campaigns that produced the Wall and memorialize the thousands of conscripted laborers whose lives were sacrificed to its construction.One of the most striking features of Chen's photographs is their unexpected variety of perspectives and moods, capturing the vicissitudes of weather, time, and human history that have acted upon it. By excluding the people, highways, factories, and modern buildings that encroach on and daily destroy sections of the Wall, however, Chen eliminates major aspects of the Wall's present reality from his pictures. In a thoughtful essay and interview with the artist, Anne Wilkes Tucker probes the meanings of such omissions and guides the reader through Chen's extraordinary images. The Great Wall of China is essential reading for photographers, historians, and travelers.

Softcover. NY, Bryant Literary Union, 1898, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Stiff card covers with black cloth spine featuring a 107" long by 5.5" high colorful long map tacked in at back, folded up, easily detached and suitable for framing. With ad for St. Denis Hotel on back cover. Astor House ad inside back cover. No names, clean text. A fascinating guide book to the Hudson River and adjacent areas with attractive black and white photos and illustrations of scenic spots in the area on the verso of most of the text pages. Gutter cracked at Highlands page, but not affecting integrity of binding. ALSO: Laid in is a folded flyer advertising The Great Hudson Panorama by Wallace Bruce, a picture ribbon book 80 feet in length depicting the shoreline of the Hudson River.

Hardcover. London, B.T. Batsford, 1st, 1952, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 194 pages. Color frontis plus photographic b&w plates. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Mills & Boon], 1st, 1922, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering, 208 pages. 9 b&w photographic plates. Charming guide to this historic section of London. Small ownership stamp to front fly leaf, tiny nicks to cloth corners, otherwise a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, A. T. Goodrich, 1st, 1839, Book: Good, Hardcover, publisher's ribbed dark green cloth, gilt-lettered at the spine. Cloth tight and sound. 12mo, With four views and nine (of 10) maps, all in very good condition. The map opposite page 78 pertaining to the Niagara Falls area has been excised. Previous owner's 1840 ownership signature on reverse on copyright page bleeds through to title page. Water stain to front endpapers, affects first 10 pages, otherwise tight and clean.

Softcover. Omaha NE, Union Pacific System , 1929, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover booklet, 44 pages, stapled green paper covers with embossed design stamped in gilt and red. A travel guide for passengers on the Union Pacific, b&w illustrations throughout. Excellent condition, bright, unmarked.

Oxford UK, Penrose and Palmer, 1st, nd, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, light tan stapled wrappers, 64 pages with 100 b&w photos. Center spread map. Bright, unmarked copy with bookseller's small sticker on front.

Hardcover. NY, John Day, 1st US, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly edgeworn, price-clipped dust jacket. Another in the author's popular series of early-mid-20th-century travel guides from an Asian perspective, this one representing his first trip across the Atlantic where he brings New York City to life with 120+ of his own pen-and-ink drawings & 17 full-color plates, created using traditional Chinese technique & media, painting on both absorbent paper & sometimes silk. His observations on the life and scenery of America are as oblique and charming as ever, while his experiences round Times Square, along Fifth Avenue, in Chinatown, Greenwich Village, the Bowery, and Harlem are depicted with the postwar charm that would soon be lost forever. In 281 pages with map endpapers, this is the First American Edition (no date in book, but research places it at 1950).

Hardcover. Leipzig, Bernard Tauchnitz, 1860, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, A very handsome edition of The Marble Faun, otherwise known as Transformation: Or The Romance of Monte Beni. The work was written on the eve of the American Civil War and is set in Italy. The work combines gothic literature, travel guides and fables. Two matching volumes, 292 + 280 pages. Title page states 1860. Bound in full vellum with leather ties, gilt-ruled and gilt-lettered parchment. Copyright Edition stated on title page of each volume and Printing Office of the Publisher on page 292 of volume one. twenty-six albumen photographic plates of contemporary Rome to 'Volume One' and twenty three to 'Volume Two'. Covers splayed as is common with this edition. Clean copies.

Hardcover. Buffalo, Faxon and Read, 1st, 1841, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Traveller's Own Book, to Saratoga Springs, Niagara Falls and Canada, containing Routes, Distances, Conveyances, Expenses, Use of Mineral Waters, Baths, Description of Scenery, etc. A Complete Guide. with Maps and Engravings. Hardcover, 258 pages, 4 X 6 inches. Ribbed brown cloth with gilt lettering on spine and front cover. The map of Niagara Falls is missing, the folding map of Saratoga is present, though heavily foxed. The first printing of this popular guide book. Several b&w illustrations. Scattered foxing throughout. Light wear to covers, short tears to spine cloth. Pencil notes on endpapers.

Hardcover. Philadelphia, M. Carey, reprint, 1813, Book: Fair, Dust Jacket: None, Travels Through the Canadas Containing a Description of the Picturesque Scenery on Some of the Rivers and Lakes with an Account of the Productions Commerce and Inhabitants of Those Provinces. Hardcover, printed boards with calf spine that has a paper label with the title. 282 pages. Text generally clean with only occasional light foxing or soiling. Text pages intact. Internal binding strong. NOTE: this is a reprint of the 1807 book, minus any plates or illustrations. Previous owner's names, inscriptions on preliminary pages and title page. In an attractive maroon color slipcase that the book fits into nicely.

Hardcover. Boston, Chas S. Binner, reprint, 1898, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 267 pages. Red cloth covers with beveled edges and gilt titles, profusely illustrated with b&w plates. Pages 13-18 separated from page block, light rubbing, spotting to covers, wear to cover corners and edges, small chunk missing from lower edge of faded spine.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton and Mifflin, 1st, 1937, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green pebbled cloth, 392 pages, many b&w photogravures. Color map in rear pocket in excellent condition. Believed to be a first printing with the 1937 date on the title page. No dust jacket. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Cambridge MA, The MIT Press, 1st, 1997, Book: N, Softcover, 119 pages. Ultimately, Viewing Olmsted is a savvy and thought-provoking, yet diminutive picture book. The collaboration of three brilliant photographers under the sponsorship of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, it guides the reader down three highly personal, present day tours of legendary parks designed by Olmsted, the patron saint of American landscape architecture. Happily, though, its readers are left to intellectually fend for themselves as to meanings or implications of Frederick Olmsted's work, genius, and lasting influence as the man who designed such famous spaces as Central Park. Academics and artists will appreciate the fresh visual perspectives offered on the man's legacy, the sometimes soothing, sometimes haunting nature-by-design retreats for the urban soul. Those with more than a passing interest in the ways in which man interacts with his `natural' surroundings will appreciate vistas evocative of place rather than time. To the authors' credit, the book raises more questions than it answers, and is of a scale to fit neatly into a travel case. Far from definitive, the book is, nevertheless, a must have for architects, landscape architects, photographers, and Olmsted aficionados.

Hardcover. NY, Ecco, 6th pr., 2021, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 471 pages. A guide to some of the world's most fascinating places, as seen and experienced by writer, television host, and relentlessly curious traveler Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain saw more of the world than nearly anyone. His travels took him from the hidden pockets of his hometown of New York to a tribal longhouse in Borneo, from cosmopolitan Buenos Aires, Paris, and Shanghai to Tanzania's utter beauty and the stunning desert solitude of Oman's Empty Quarter--and many places beyond. In World Travel, a life of experience is collected into an entertaining, practical, fun and frank travel guide that gives readers an introduction to some of his favorite places--in his own words. Featuring essential advice on how to get there, what to eat, where to stay and, in some cases, what to avoid, World Travel provides essential context that will help readers further appreciate the reasons why Bourdain found a place enchanting and memorable. Clean copy.