82


82. Rey, Guido. Peaks and Precipices. Scrambles in the Dolomites and Savoy. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1914.


£95


First English edition. Large 8vo. pp. 238; photo. illusts.; minor spotting, else good in the original cloth, gilt, slightly faded on spine, rubbed.


Neate R26; Perret 3662. Guido Rey (1861-1935) was a leading alpinist of the turn of the century, and like his cousin Vittorio Sella an accomplished photographer. This work relates his climbs in the Dolomites and the Mont Blanc massif, largely illustrated from his own photographs.


83. Rook, Clarence & Effie Jardine, illustrator. Switzerland: The Country and its People. London: Chatto & Windus, 1907.


£45 20


First edition. 8vo. pp. x, 270, [4, ads.]; errata slip to first page of text; 56 coloured and 24 half-tone plates; minor spotting to fore-edge, else near-fine in the original cloth, gilt, a few small bumps to extremities.


Perret 3758. A nicely illustrated work on the country, with views of the more prominent mountains, and a chapter on winter sports.


83


84


84. Roth, Abraham. The Doldenhorn and Weisse Frau. Ascended for the first time by Abraham Roth and Edmund von Fellenberg. Coblenz: Karl Bædeker; London & Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1863.


£975


First English edition. 8vo. pp. [iv], 82, 1; 11 coloured lithographs from original sketches by Gosset and Fellenberg, 2 wood-eng. plates, two illusts. to text, one folding coloured map; some foxing, else very good in the original pictorial wrappers, in the original printed dust-wrapper, which is soiled, frayed to spine with loss at foot, and with a small label to the lower wrapper.


Wäber I.141; Neate R77; Perret 1602. Edmund von Fellenberg (1838- 1902) was a pioneer climber in the Bernese Oberland. He and Philip Gosset (1838-1911) unsuccessfully attempted to climb the Doldenhorn and Weisse Frau in 1862, and it was left to von Fellenberg and Abraham Roth (1823- 1880) to make the successful first ascents later that year. Roth’s account is illustrated by Gosset and von Fellenberg’s sketches.


85. Saussure, Horace-Bénédict de. Voyages dans les Alpes, précédés d’un Essai sur l’Histoire naturelle des Environs de Geneve. Neuchatel: Louis Fauche-Borel, 1803-1804-1796-1796.


£3,500


Mixed edition - vols. I-II later editions, vols. III-IV first eds. 4 vols. 4to. pp. xxii, 454, [iv], 568, [vi], xx, 532, & [vi], 594, [2]; 2 folding maps, 21 engraved plates; very good in contemporary quarter calf with calf tips, contrasting labels to spines, occasional surface wear to boards, one label to vol. IV scratched, still a handsome set.


See Wäber 39; Cox 5; Nava D, E/1; Meckly 169; Perret 3911. Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799), perhaps more than any other of his time, brought the Alps, and Mont Blanc in particular, to the attention of the learned class of Europe. He first visited Chamonix in 1760, and established a prize for the first ascent to the summit of Mont Blanc. Despite making the attempt himself, de Saussure was beaten to the goal by Dr. Michel Paccard and Jacques Balmat, whose 1786 ascent he equalled when he attained the summit in 1787. His account of this achievement - the Relation abrégée d’un Voyage a la Cime du Mont-Blanc - was the first ever published description of an ascent of the mountain. Both before and after this ascent, de Saussure had been at work on his magnum opus, Voyages dans les Alpes, the first volume of which appeared in 1779. This is a mixed set of the quarto edition of de Saussure’s magnum opus.


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