[SOLD] John Kelman – From Damascus to Palmyra – 1908 First Edition

First edition, 1908, part of a series of travel books published by A&C Black in the years leading up to the First World War.

An attractive volume with more than 70 full-page colour illustrations of Lebanon and Syria by Margaret Thomas, with tissue guards.

Features a colour folding map of the Levant.

In unusually good condition for this title with vibrant colours to the cloth cover and spine. Clean inside with no inscriptions or writing.

Size 228x159m, 268pp.

Original cloth cover, colours faded and with browning to some internal pages. Clean internally with no writing or markings.

“The objective of the book is Palmyra, but it reaches its destination by way of Beyrout, Baalbek, and Damascus. Only a passing glimpse at these cities is allowed us, but I have tried to give character to these glimpses by taking each of them as a type or symbol of one aspect of Oriental life. Beyrout may stand for the modern contact of East and West, Baalbek for the same contact in Graeco-Roman times, and Damascus sits dreaming her timeless dream. Palmyra appropriates the last six of the thirteen chapters. Lebanon, Coelesyria, Antilibanus, Oasis Villages, and the Desert are each of them component parts of the region, without some knowledge of which the story of Palmyra would be incomplete.”