Folio. [4], 96 pp., Illustrated with an additional pictorial tinted lithographic title-page with vignettes of Karnak, Naples, Venice, Cairo, Athens, Belem Castle and Constantinople, 40 tinted lithographic plates, tissue guards, numerous wood engraved vignettes, 96 wood engravings including title page, half-title, lightly foxed title page, minor foxing to additional lithographic title, partly unopened, illustrated after the author's drawings with lithographs "on zinc", original pictorial green cloth, faded round edges, new spine with label, Longman, Brown, Green, London, second edition, 1845.

Synopsis

The author, member of the Athenian Archaeological Society and the Egyptian Society of Cairo, undertook this journey from April 1841 to June 1842.
Allan spent a year – from April 1841 to June 1842 – travelling in the Mediterranean. The plates are after drawings by the author and illustrate mostly sites in Egypt but also Rhodes, Cos, Asia Minor and Greece.
John Harrison Allan was from Britain. He was a member of the Athenian Archaeological Society and the Egyptian Society of Cairo. He made a journey to the Mediterranean from April 1841 to June 1842. This Grand Tour of the East had become quite usual for wealthy European in the 19th century, and was considered almost a necessity, as a means to educate oneself and as a sign of social status.
Allan published his memoir in 1843, creating a work, of interest above all for its illustrations, which was republished two times. The plates illustrating this large-format work were based on drawings made by Allan himself. The edition is comprised by forty lithographs and sixty-eight wood engravings.
The voyage began in Liverpool on 29th of April 1841. The ship, The Oriental, reached Venice by way of Gibraltar and Malta, sailed across the Adriatic and the Aegean sea and reached Istanbul. In continuation, the company sailed along the coast of Asia Minor, stopped over at Syros and set anchor at Alexandria. They explored Egypt down to the cataracts of the Nile in Assouan and returned to Alexandria. After a stopover at Malta, they were in Syros again, from where they travelled to Athens. They toured Attica, the Peloponnese, Delphi, and reached Patras. They then visited the Ionian islands, and sailed to Malta, Sicily, Southern Italy, Rome, Marseilles, Barcelona, Malaga and Lisbon.
Bibliographic References: Abbey 200; Blackmer 24 (both for first edition); Hilmy I, 31 (for 1846 edition); Atabey, Sotheby’s London, 2002, No: 20.