£120
8vo, pp. [xii], 264, [4, ads]. Original green cloth, front board and spine blocked in gilt and black, central blind stamp to rear board. A little foxing, short closed tear to blank margin of one page. A touch of wear to extremities. Ink ownership inscription to front flyleaf.
A delightful and scarce volume of travel writing by English author Caroline Gearey (1846-1915), which gathers anecdotes and observations from her journeys through Spain, Italy, and Austria, as well as an opening chapter titled 'the humorous side of travel'. Rare in the market, and Library Hub cites only 7 copies of this edition in British and Irish institutions, with OCLC adding an eighth copy at Temple University in Pennsylvania.
Gearey published eight other books between 1884 and 1904, including biographies of Mary Unwin, Olympia Morata, Elizabeth and Marguerite of Valois, and Empresses Josephine, Eugenie, and Marie-Louise of France, but her own life seems to have been little recorded apart from her inclusion on the Gearey family tombstone in Hertfordshire.
