Central Asia and Tibet. Towards the holy City of Lassa. With 420 Illustrations from Drawings and Photographs, Eight Full-page Coloured Illustrations from Paintings, and Five Maps, mostly by the author.
Firat Edition, published by Hurst and Blackett,, London,, 1903, two volumes, hardcovers, illustrated, index, set measures 17.6 cms x 24.5 cms x 9.2 cms, condition: very good.
Volume I: Frontispiece (portrait of the author), XVII pages, 1 leaf, 608 pages, 4 color lithographed fold-out maps ("Map of Tibet and East Turkestan", "Map of Tarim River and the Takla-makan Desert", "Map of Eastern Tibet" [together with] "Original Map of the Tarim River").
Volume II: Frontispiece (portrait of Lord Curzon of Kedleston), XIV pages, 1 leaf, 664 pages, 1 fold-out map ("Map of Central Tibet"). Illustrated with over 400 photographs of views, customs, occupations, archaeological artifacts, etc., within the text, 8 plates of full-page and extra-text reproductions of paintings.
Original period binding in red cloth printed in gold on the front and spine,
The author, the Swede Sven Anders Hedin (1865 1952), was a Swedish explorer, geographer, biologist and botanist,known for his expeditions in Central Asia.
During his first major expedition to Asia, he crossed the Pamir region, mapped Lake Lop Nor in China, and continued his journey to Beijing. From there he continued to Tibet through Mongolia, Siberia and the Gobi Desert. In addition to Tibet, he explored Xinjiang, and discovered the sources of the Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej rivers. In 1906 he explored and named the Trans-Himalayan mountain system.
His travel accounts were published in several volumes, including Scientific Results of a Journey to Central Asia (19041908), Trans-Himalaya (19091912), and Southern Tibet (19171922). Finally, in 1927, Hedin led an expedition of Swedish and Chinese scientists to Central Asia.
His other works include Across Asia (1898), The Conquest of Tibet (1935), My Life as an Explorer (1926), and many other well-known travel accounts.
Despite being of Jewish origin, and having a great-grandfather as a rabbi, Hedin was a Nazi apologist who stood alongside Hitler on the podium at the 1936 Olympics.
