The Incidents of a Mediterranean Cruise And a Side Trip Across The Continent.

Dayton, Ohio: Press of U.B. Publishing House, The Otterbein Press, 1911. FIRST EDITION, PRESENTATION COPY, 8vo, pp. 75, [1] + frontispiece. original green textured cloth, front board lettered and blocked in gilt. A little rubbing at extremities, spine ends bruised. Presentation inscription to flyleaf: ‘Compliments of the author J. Morton Howell.’ A rare travelogue by Dr Joseph Morton Howell (1864-1937) covering a wide swath of Europe, North Africa and The Levant, in a series of letters originally written for publication in the Dayton Herald newspaper. Leaving New York in February 1911, Howell’s trip took in Athens, Constantinople, Damascus and Jerusalem, then a whistle-stop tour of Europe passing through several capitals and visiting the houses of parliament and the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Howell would later return the the Mediterranean in his diplomatic career as American ambassador to Egypt from 1921-1927, in which capacity he was present at the opening of King Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1923. Howell’s preface tells us that this little book was ‘intended as a memento for the many splendid friends whom it was [his] good fortune to meet throughout the long but most pleasant journey’ and it was likely privately printed in a fairly small run. No holdings are recorded in Library Hub, with Worldcat adding only 3: Harvard, NYPL and The Dayton, Ohio Metropolitan Library system; the New York copy is also signed by Howell.