Mrs J.F. Bishop (Isabella L. Bird): 'The Yangtze Valley and ...

Estimate

£50 - £80

Mrs J.F. Bishop (Isabella L. Bird): 'The Yangtze Valley and Beyond. An Account of Journeys in China, Chiefly in the Province of Sze Chuan and Among the Man-Tze of the Somo Territory.', Lobndon, John Murray, 1899, 1st edition, folding colour map + 116 illustrations (of which many full page plates and from photographs, including frontis), xv,557,[1]pp, errate slip tipped in, original green cloth gilt (worn), backstrip part detached, top edge gilt. Isabella Lucy Bird (1831-1904), writing under the name "Mrs J. F. Bishop," journeyed around China in 1896-97, including eight months spent on the Yangtze, as part of a three-year tour of East Asia. In the present work. She chronicles her journey along the river westwards from Shanghai, via Ningbo, Hangzhou, Nankou, and Yichang. At Wanxian, Bird left the river and headed due west to the territory of the Miao people, before heading south to pick up the river again at Chongqing. First edition of the last published work by Isabella Bird, one of the most famous of all women travellers, the first woman inducted into the Royal Geographical Society, an honorary fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, a member of the Royal Photographic Society and an honorary member of the Oriental Society of Peking.