News from Tartary
FLEMING, Peter
News from Tartary
London: Jonathan Cape, 1936
8vo., Full crushed light blue morocco gilt, gilt border to both boards, lettered and lined in gilt to spine with five raised bands; decorative head- and tail- bands; all edges gilt; handmade marbled endpapers; pp. [viii], 5-384, [ii]; essentially a fine copy, with just the odd spot and previous ownership name and date in ink to p. [iii].
First edition, finely bound. This copy signed by the author to p. [iii] “Peter Fleming / scripsit / Stockholm / 1947”. This copy additionally with ALS dated 1947 on Merrimoles House headed notepaper, addressed “Dear Minister” (presumably to the UK’s ambassador to Sweden in 1947, Sir Cecil Bertrand Jerram). “I quite enjoyed my Swedish tour + am glad I did it: though I rather doubt if I would do it again.”
News from Tartary is perhaps the apogee of Fleming’s travel writing, the account of a journey from Peking (as it was) on the China coast to Srinagar in British India, by way of the deserts of Sinkiang. Fleming traveled together with the Swiss sportswoman and explorer Kini (Ella) Maillart, whom he met by chance when already in China. Sinkiang, home to most of China’s Uighur Muslims, was extremely inaccessible at the time, especially for European travelers - and Fleming expected to be turned back at almost every stage of their journey. The journey was a long one, and adventurous - the duo traveled by turns by train, cramped open-air lorry, in the camel train of a nomad prince, by horse, and occasionally on foot. They camped out and Fleming had to hunt ‘for the pot’ (a decided change from Brazil, where he had hunted, it seems, purely for sport).
Illustrated with his photographs, the book is a gripping read and laugh-out loud funny. It is the finest of his pre-War travel volumes, in which he achieved his best balance yet between the fineness of his prose and the sharpness of his humour. This copy is INSCRIBED to the then British Minister in Sweden, presumably Sir Bertrand Jerram, who had recently hosted Fleming in Stockholm and comes with an autograph letter signed by Fleming to Jerram in which he thanks him for hosting him and notes that England is “under the weather, both metaphorically + otherwise.”
A rare combination.
FLEMING, Peter
News from Tartary
London: Jonathan Cape, 1936
8vo., Full crushed light blue morocco gilt, gilt border to both boards, lettered and lined in gilt to spine with five raised bands; decorative head- and tail- bands; all edges gilt; handmade marbled endpapers; pp. [viii], 5-384, [ii]; essentially a fine copy, with just the odd spot and previous ownership name and date in ink to p. [iii].
First edition, finely bound. This copy signed by the author to p. [iii] “Peter Fleming / scripsit / Stockholm / 1947”. This copy additionally with ALS dated 1947 on Merrimoles House headed notepaper, addressed “Dear Minister” (presumably to the UK’s ambassador to Sweden in 1947, Sir Cecil Bertrand Jerram). “I quite enjoyed my Swedish tour + am glad I did it: though I rather doubt if I would do it again.”
News from Tartary is perhaps the apogee of Fleming’s travel writing, the account of a journey from Peking (as it was) on the China coast to Srinagar in British India, by way of the deserts of Sinkiang. Fleming traveled together with the Swiss sportswoman and explorer Kini (Ella) Maillart, whom he met by chance when already in China. Sinkiang, home to most of China’s Uighur Muslims, was extremely inaccessible at the time, especially for European travelers - and Fleming expected to be turned back at almost every stage of their journey. The journey was a long one, and adventurous - the duo traveled by turns by train, cramped open-air lorry, in the camel train of a nomad prince, by horse, and occasionally on foot. They camped out and Fleming had to hunt ‘for the pot’ (a decided change from Brazil, where he had hunted, it seems, purely for sport).
Illustrated with his photographs, the book is a gripping read and laugh-out loud funny. It is the finest of his pre-War travel volumes, in which he achieved his best balance yet between the fineness of his prose and the sharpness of his humour. This copy is INSCRIBED to the then British Minister in Sweden, presumably Sir Bertrand Jerram, who had recently hosted Fleming in Stockholm and comes with an autograph letter signed by Fleming to Jerram in which he thanks him for hosting him and notes that England is “under the weather, both metaphorically + otherwise.”
A rare combination.
FLEMING, Peter
News from Tartary
London: Jonathan Cape, 1936
8vo., Full crushed light blue morocco gilt, gilt border to both boards, lettered and lined in gilt to spine with five raised bands; decorative head- and tail- bands; all edges gilt; handmade marbled endpapers; pp. [viii], 5-384, [ii]; essentially a fine copy, with just the odd spot and previous ownership name and date in ink to p. [iii].
First edition, finely bound. This copy signed by the author to p. [iii] “Peter Fleming / scripsit / Stockholm / 1947”. This copy additionally with ALS dated 1947 on Merrimoles House headed notepaper, addressed “Dear Minister” (presumably to the UK’s ambassador to Sweden in 1947, Sir Cecil Bertrand Jerram). “I quite enjoyed my Swedish tour + am glad I did it: though I rather doubt if I would do it again.”
News from Tartary is perhaps the apogee of Fleming’s travel writing, the account of a journey from Peking (as it was) on the China coast to Srinagar in British India, by way of the deserts of Sinkiang. Fleming traveled together with the Swiss sportswoman and explorer Kini (Ella) Maillart, whom he met by chance when already in China. Sinkiang, home to most of China’s Uighur Muslims, was extremely inaccessible at the time, especially for European travelers - and Fleming expected to be turned back at almost every stage of their journey. The journey was a long one, and adventurous - the duo traveled by turns by train, cramped open-air lorry, in the camel train of a nomad prince, by horse, and occasionally on foot. They camped out and Fleming had to hunt ‘for the pot’ (a decided change from Brazil, where he had hunted, it seems, purely for sport).
Illustrated with his photographs, the book is a gripping read and laugh-out loud funny. It is the finest of his pre-War travel volumes, in which he achieved his best balance yet between the fineness of his prose and the sharpness of his humour. This copy is INSCRIBED to the then British Minister in Sweden, presumably Sir Bertrand Jerram, who had recently hosted Fleming in Stockholm and comes with an autograph letter signed by Fleming to Jerram in which he thanks him for hosting him and notes that England is “under the weather, both metaphorically + otherwise.”
A rare combination.