8vo. xv, 386 pp. engraved frontispiece map, offset onto title, early cloth, faded rubbed, title gilt on spine, occasional foxing mainly to first and last few leaves, otherwise copy in good condition, T. Cadell and W. Davies, London, first edition, 1813.

Synopsis

This work contains the letters actually written by Galt while he was travelling in the Levant from 1809 to 1811. There is a good deal about his meeting with Byron, with whom he travelled from Gibraltar to Malta. They met again in Athens in the spring of 1810 where they were united in their dislike of Elgin – Galt’s ‘Atheniad’, written while he and Byron were in Athens, influenced Byron’s ‘Curse of Minerva’, an attack on Elgin. Byron says of Galt in his journal, “We are old fellow-travellers, and, with all his eccentricities, he has much strong sense, experience of the world, and is, as far as I have seen, a good-natured philosophical fellow…” (Marchand III, p. 340). Galt later produced a biography of Byron which belied his good-natured qualities. The frontispiece consists of a map of Greece curiously oriented.
Bibliographic references: Blackmer, 645; Weber, 32.