[PORTER, REV. JOSIAS LESLIE]. Five Years in Damascus: Including an Account of the History, Topography, and Antiquities of that City; with Travel and Researches in Palmyra, Lebanon, and the Hauran. London: John Murray, 1855.
First edition. In two volumes; cloth-bound; hardcover; octavo (20.5cm x 13cm); pp. x, [2], 395; vi, [2], 372. English text. Bound in publisher's original cloth gilt; brown coated endpapers; vol. I. with 16 illustrations including a frontispiece and folding map at the end; vol. II. with 15 illustrations including a folding map at the end; printed footnotes; geographical and general index at end of vol. II. Printed by W. Clowes and Sons. Condition: VERY GOOD. Collated complete. Bindings tight and secure with the hinges and joints intact. Covers clean with slight dulling to spines and bumping to the ends. Interiors very well-preserved with some spotting confined to prelims and a small tear to vol. II rear map. Without previous ownership markings. Scarce thus.
Notes: Rare first edition and an uncommonly well-preserved copy of Josias Leslie Porter's first book on the Middle East. Porter was a renowned Irish Presbyterian minister, missionary and traveller, who became an academic administrator. Sent to Damascus as a missionary in the mid nineteenth century, Porter recorded his life in the city in this work, as well as his journeys to destinations including Palmyra, the Hauran, and Lebanon. Providing a fascinating account of the history, topography, and antiquities of the city. The many plates are after Porter's own drawings and from photographs taken by James Graham, Porter also constructed the map, and the plan of Damascus. [Blackmer 1333; Creswell 396; Rohricht 2407].
