[BURTON, ISABEL]. The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land. London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875.
FIRST EDITION. In two volumes; leather-bound; hardcover; octavo (22.5 x 14 cm); pp. x, 376; [6], 340. English text. Handsomely bound in half morocco gilt by Morrell; cloth sides; top edges gilt; marbled endpapers; half-titles; two portrait frontispieces; two chromolithographed plates; one folding map of Syria; printed footnotes; appendix. The original spine cloth bound in at the rear of each volume. Printed at the Caxton Printing Works, Beccles. Condition: VERY GOOD. Collated complete. Bindings tight and secure, the hinges and joints intact. Covers well-preserved with some light dulling to the spines. Interior largely fresh and clean, the rear map with a small tear. Scarce.
Notes: First edition of Lady Isabel Burton's first book drawn from her private journal, recounting the journey made with her husband Sir Richard F. Burton to Syria, Palestine and the Holy Land between 1869 and 1871. It is a remarkable work of travel literature, offering a rare 19th-century woman's perspective on the domestic and social customs of Syrian and Palestinian society; intending "to convey an idea of the life which an Englishwoman may make for herself in the East" (p. vii). It includes detailed descriptions of Damascus, the Hajj, Palmyra and Beirut, as well as dervish dances, a Muslim wedding, and a Turkish bath. With mounted albumen portrait photographs of the author and her husband, two coloured plates, plus an excellent map of Damascus and surrounding area. The spine titles in the second compartments read: "Works of Sir R.F. Burton". Weber I, 724. Cf. Blackmer 246 (2nd ed.). Not in Atabey.
