Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas & Yucatan: with the Famous Catherwood Drawings [2 Volumes in 1] by John L. [Lloyd] Stephens; Richard L. Predmore, ed - 1956

New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1956. First Thus. Cloth. Very good +/very good. Frederick Catherwood. A "newly edited" reissue of a classic work. Very good+ first thus in a very good dust jacket. [HAND S504]. Title page and copyright page both read 1949, but the dust jacket identifies 1956 as the year the two in one was published, using the plates from the original two volume set of 1949. Orange cloth boards with map end papers. Blue ink specks on top edge. Binding is sound and sturdy, pages unmarked. With a most unusual previous owner's bookplate: a green plastic impression label from an old fashioned label-maker, with a code... followed by, "H.M.S.S. Agent..." From the private library of Larry Southwick. Dust jacket shows shelf wear at top and bottom edge and is price clipped. Dust jacket now protected in a clear, removable, archival cover. 346; 401 pp. with appendices. Octavo. At two o'clock, under a brilliant moonlight, and with a single guide, we started for the Pacific. The road was level and wooded. We passed a trapiche or sugar-mill, worked by oxen, and before daylight reached the village of Masagua, four leagues distant, built in a clearing cut out of the woods, at the entrance of which we stopped under a grove of orange-trees, and by the light of the moon filled our pockets and alforgas with the shining fruit. Daylight broke upon us in a forest of gigantic trees, from seventy-five to a hundred feet high, and from twenty to twenty-five feet in circumference, with creepers winding around their trunks and hanging from the branches. The road was merely a path through the forest, formed by cutting away shrubs and branches. The freshness of the morning was delightful." -from Chapter XIII As a Special Ambassador to Central America in 1839, American diplomat and writer JOHN LLOYD STEPHENS (1805-1852) witnessed civil war, explored Mayan ruins, and even bought a city for $50. He turned his real-life adventures in the jungles and villages of that fabled land into this classic of travel literature.