Lady Brassey - In the Trades, The Tropics & The Roaring Forties - 1885

DESCRIPTION: I am pleased to offer at auction a beautiful copy of the highly sought-after FIRST EDITION of Lady Annie BRASSEY’S famous travel chronicle "IN THE TRADES, THE TROPICS, & THE ROARING FORTIES", featuring 292 exquisite wood engravings by G. L. Seymour and Lady Brassey. A true treasure for collectors and lovers of classic Victorian exploration and maritime literature.

Lady Annie Brassey (1839-1887) belongs to the most celebrated group of Victorian travel writers and intrepid explorers. Here she presents a lavish chronicle of her 14,000-mile voyage aboard the legendary steam-yacht Sunbeam, capturing the magic of the high seas with breathtaking prose and rich illustrations!

This is a book so special that it deserves a description worthy of it, one in which you, the bidder and future reader, become the protagonist:

Once upon a time, there was a collector who believed he was searching for a masterpiece. He did not yet know that, in truth, the masterpiece had already chosen him.

On a velvet-lined shelf, shielded from the relentless pace of the modern age, a rare volume waited in poise: the 1885 first edition of Lady Annie Brassey’s In the Trades, the Tropics, and the Roaring Forties. When the cover was lifted, the air seemed to fill with the distant creak of wooden rigging, the warm salt spray of the Atlantic, and the evocative whispers of a grand global itinerary. It was not merely a travelogue to be read, but a transatlantic odyssey across unforgettable ports of call to be experienced.

Lady Brassey had envisioned this journey as one captures the wonder of a golden age of sail: with prose that breathed life into exotic horizons and engravings that rendered every coral reef, volcanic peak, and lush tropical coast with extraordinary delicacy. Her world was not a distant land on a chart; it was a living panorama of maritime adventure, carrying the reader from the sun-drenched shores of Madeira and the dramatic volcanic heights of the Azores, across the turquoise waters to Bermuda and the coral cays of The Bahamas, down through the Caribbean heartlands of Jamaica and the lush, vibrant island of Trinidad, to the continental mainland coasts of Venezuela, and through the surging, storm-tossed swells of the Roaring Forties. Her accounts did not just occupy the page; they vibrated within it, suspended in a moment of Victorian splendor. Every engraving seemed to murmur: the sea is calling, sail on.

Whoever turned these heavy pages understood something essential: before this journey became a historical gem of maritime literature, it was a dream of freedom and discovery; before it was a classic, it was a celebration of the human spirit’s endless curiosity. And that spirit had been preserved there, vibrant and still, in that very 1885 printing, like a breeze caught in a sails-bound journal.

As the decades drifted by, copies of this caliber began to fade into the shadows of history. Many were locked away in silent vaults; others succumbed to the wear of time. Fewer and fewer remained in the light, and those that survived developed a quiet urgency, seeking a hand that would appreciate their weight.

The collector touched the spine with reverence. He understood then that certain books do not enter our lives to be owned; they come to transform our surroundings into something more magical. He realized that some treasures are not acquired through logic, but recognized by a soul that remembers a beauty it has seen before.

From that day on, the volume sat in a place of honor.

And the collector, whenever he caught sight of that gilded title, would feel a quiet joy: he had learned that the greatest voyages never truly end—they simply wait for the right person to take the helm once more.

EXQUISITE AND HIGHLY SOUGHT-AFTER FIRST EDITION OF LADY BRASSEY’S "IN THE TRADES, THE TROPICS, & THE ROARING FORTIES". DO NOT MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY.

LANGUAGE: English

PLACE AND YEAR OF PUBLICATION: London, 1885, Longmans, Green, & Co. FIRST EDITION

SIZE AND PAGINATION:
Dimensions: Octavo, 23 x 16 cm.
Thickness: 5 cm.
Pagination: xiv, 532 pp.
Illustrations: 292 wood-engraved illustrations.
Weight: 1,3 kg.

CONDITION: Original cloth binding, in good condition as shown in the photos. Spine and front cover decorated with beautiful pictorial gilt and black stamped designs featuring nautical and tropical motifs.

Interior in very good condition, as shown in the photos. Clean pages, sound binding, and crisp engravings throughout. Please see photos to get a sense of the condition and marvelous art. A FINE AND DESIRABLE COPY FOR COLLECTORS.

EXQUISITE AND HIGHLY SOUGHT-AFTER FIRST EDITION OF LADY BRASSEY’S "IN THE TRADES, THE TROPICS, & THE ROARING FORTIES". DO NOT MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY.

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The book will be carefully packaged to ensure it enjoys a safe and comfortable journey to its new home.