Voyage de Milady Craven by CRAVEN, Lady Elizabeth Berkeley (1750-1828).

Second Edition in French?; First Edition. [with:] FRIESEMAN, Hendrik. Description historique et geographique de l’Archipel, rédigé d’après de nouvelles Observations, & particulièrement utile aux Négocians & aux Navigateurs. Newied sur le Rhin, Chez la Société Typographique. 1789. Two works in one volume, 8vo (190 x 115 mm), pp. [iv], 281; [vi], 143, [1], in contemporary quarter calf over red mottled boards, spine ruled and lettered gilt gilt, worn at extremities.

A scarce French edition of this highly entertaining travel diary by the intrepid Lady Craven. Written as a series of letters to the Margrave of Ansbach-Bayreuth, who later became her husband, Craven’s lively account of a journey across much travelled Europe into less travelled eastern Europe and on into the Middle East brought her much acclaim as a pioneer among women travellers. ‘[Her travels] caused Lady Craven to encounter people she had never met, to discover landscapes she had never seen and landscapes she was not used to. The accounts she gives of her experience are a wealth of information on her general perception of the unknown and her personal evolution in the course of this journey’ (Palma). This edition is probably a pirated edition, published in the same year as the first French edition, but without the map or plates.
Bound after the Craven is a scarce guide to the Greek islands, attributed to Hendrik Frieseman, giving details on the population, principal towns, ports and monasteries and the chief trade or commodity of the islands. Geographical detail is also given, with a fairly subjective approach, hence Santorini: ‘Cette isle connue autrefois sous le nom de Thera & Calliste, c’est à-dire très-belle, ne mérite plus ce beau nom: elle n’est aujourd’hui autre chose qu’une carriere de pierre ponce. Ses côtes sont si affreuses, qu’on ne fait de quel côté les aborder; il y a toute apparence que ce font les tremblemens de terre qui les ont rendues inaccessibles. Son port ne pouroit être d’aucune utilité, n’ayant point de font du tout’.