Pietro's Pilgrimage. A Journey to India and Back at the Beginning of the Seventeenth Century. (Signed).

London: James Barrie, 1953.. 1st edition. "Pietro Della Valle was in the East for some twelve years. He knew Constantinople well in the sunset of its glory; he visited Cairo, Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo and Baghdad; he explored Ctesiphon and Babylon; he spent seven years in Persia during the splendid reign of Shah Abbas, whom he knew personally; and he visited parts of India reached by few other travellers of his day...Wilfrid Blunt has reduced the complete tale - amounting to nearly a million words - to the minimum. His immense research has produced a scholarly and fascinating book." Pp.xii/320, portrait frontispiece + 29 further black & white illustrations + 1 map, inscribed "For Muffet, with love and gratitude once more for all your help from Wilfrid. Dec.4. 1953" to front free endpaper, newspaer review cutting loosely enclosed. Black cloth, dustwrapper has edge wear with some small losses. VG/G+.** "Muffet" refers to Mary 'Muffet' Harrison (wife of Arthur Harrison of Marlborough school) who worked with Wilfrid on his 1950 book 'The Art of Botanical Illustration'.** Wilfrid Jasper Walter Blunt (1901�1987) was an art teacher, author, artist and curator of the Watts Gallery at Compton, Surrey (1959�83). He was educated at Marlborough College (scholar), Worcester College, Oxford, and the Royal College of Art. He taught art at Haileybury College (1923�37) and Eton College (1937�59) and helped to start a revolution in the hand-writing of British school-children, using the 15th-century Italian Cancellaresca ("Chancery") script as a basis. Wilfrid Blunt was the brother of the Art historian and Soviet spy, Anthony Blunt.