A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople. 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 MDCCLXXXVI. London, G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1789.
First Edition. 4to (270 x 200 mm), pp. [viii], 327, [1], with the half-title, large folding engraved map as frontispiece and six further engraved plates, title-page and dedication leaf fairly heavily browned, text otherwise clean and plates fresh, in contemporary calf-backed marbled boards, front board detached, a little worn and dusty, spine worn with head and tail-cap chipped, red morocco label lettered in gilt, with a contemporary heraldic bookplate.
One of the great female travelogues of the eighteenth century, by the feisty Lady Craven, dramatist, writer, traveller and socialite, said to have been the first woman ever to have descended into the Grotto of Antiparos which is strikingly illustrated on one of the engraved plates. This vivid account of her travels through France, Austria, Poland, Russia, Turkey and Greece are presented in a series of letters to her future husband, the Margrave of Anspach. While in Constantinople, she stayed with the author and collector Choiseul-Gouffier and recounts details of her stay there: ‘the Comte de Choiseul’s collection is, perhaps, the only thing in the world of the kind, and he means, when he returns to Paris, to have all the ruins and temples executed in plaster of Paris, or some materials which will copy the marble, in small models; to be place in galleries upon tables’ (Letter XLVI). Her account is also particularly interesting for her commentary as to the behaviour and dress of the women in the different places she visits.
With a large folding map and six delightful plates depicting 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. Please note, this copy has a detached front cover.
ESTC t134670; Cox I pp. 197-198; see Wayward Women, pp. 87-88.