In a Series of Letters From the Right Honourable Elizabeth Lady Craven, to His Serene Highness the Margrave of Brandebourg, Anspach, and Bareith. Written in the Year M CDD LXXXVI.

By Craven, Elizabeth Lady

London: Printed for G.G.J. And J.Robinson, 1789, First Edition. 4to – 27.8 cm. (2), [8], 327 pp., [1] directions to the binder, (2). with Half-title. Engraved fold-out map of the Crimea as front piece plate, and 6 engraved plates including 1 fold-out. 20th century half-calf and marbled boards, endpapers replaced, a very strong and attractive binding; pages crisp and with a pleasing acoustical quality, only the slightest of beginning intermittent foxing, normal offsetting on pages adjacent to plate leaves. A very clean and complete copy in Near Fine condition. Rare.

A straight forward account of travels through France, Austria, Poland, Russia, Turkey and Greece, written in the form of letters addressed from Lady Craven to her future husband, the Margrave of Anspach. While in Constantinople she stayed with Choiseul-Gouffier – letter forty-five contains comments on his activities as a collector. “Lady Craven is said to have been the first woman that descended into the grotto of Antiparos.” (Cox) She was also a noted dramatist and was greatly admired by Horace Walpole, who printed her comedy ‘The Sleepwalker’ at the Strawberry Hill Press in 1778. The plates depict the source of the River Kaarasou in the Crimea, a Turkish boat, a Turkish burial ground, the Grotto of the Antiparos, Siphanto, and the Convent of Panacrado from the Bay of Gabrio. Cox I pp. 197-98; Robinson, Wayward Women, pp. 87-88.

$1850.00 -