Picturesque Scenery in the Holy Land and Syria,

A charming work including views of Acre, Sidon, Tyre, Beirut, Jaffa, Mount Tabor, Tripoli, Caeserea, and fine genre scenes showing costumes and environs. The quality of the plates in this edition is far superior to later issues.

Francis Brockell Spilsbury was the naval surgeon on board H.M.S. Tigre during the English campaigns against the French in Egypt and Syria. H.M.S. Tigre was commanded by Sydney Smith in the relief of the siege of Acre, to whom the work is dedicated. Present also was Spilsbury's teenage son, Francis junior (1784-1830), as a midshipman who commended himself in showing "conspicuous bravery" at the siege of Acre. They were both dispatched to North America to reinforce the British fleet on the Great Lakes in 1813. They both stayed for a time in Kingston before attempting to establish a colony on the Otonabee River in Upper Canada.

First edition; folio (46.5 x 33 cm); mezzotint portrait of Sir William Sidney Smith, 19 hand-coloured lithograph plates after Spilsbury, bottom margin of mezzotint frayed and repaired, otherwise clean and fresh internally; 19th-century half green morocco, marbled boards, gilt flat spine with gilt red morocco lettering piece, corners a little bumped, a very good copy; [4], iv, 42, [1]pp.

Abbey (Travel), 381; Blackmer 1585; Colas 2788; Lipperheide 1460; Prideaux, p353.