Yedo and Peking: A Narrative of a Journey to the Capitals of Japan and China. With Notices of the natural productions, agriculture, horticulture, and trade of those countries, and other things met with by the way de Fortune, Robert - 1863

London: John Murray, 1863. First edition. With a folding engraved frontispiece (a little worn and marked, and poorly folded, a little fraying at the margins), eight other plates, 12 illustrations within the text, a folding map at the rear in good condition, octavo, pp xvi, 395, endpapers rarther soiled, title page thumbed and age-toned, contemporaqry half morocco and marbled boards, the paper cover to the boards worn through in places, the leather only a little rubbed. From the library of Compton House, Liverpool, with their stamp on the spine, a label and stamp on the front endpaper, and a few stamps throughout. Unfortunately, a previous owner has started to try and erase the stamps and has got to work on the title page, the next page and the first page of text with the result that there is considerable loss of surface to the page and in one case an actual hole; fortunately common-sense, exhaustion or death interrupted them - it would have been better if they had not started their labours. Despite the faults, this is still a good sound copy of a scarce title. [Compton House, Liverpool was one of the first purpose built department stores in Europe. The original building of 1832 was burnt down, and rebuilt in 1867, so this would have been one of the first books acquired. The new store soon closed however, and was re-opened as the Compton Hotel. It seems likely that the library would have been retained as the reading room.]. First Edition. Half-Leather. Good.