[NORTH AFRICA] - LYON (George Francis). Voyage in the interi - Lot 1

[NORTH AFRICA] - LYON (George Francis). Voyage in the interior of northern Africa in 1818, 1819 and 1820. French first edition of this rare account of a voyage to northern Africa between 1818 and 1820, illustrated with a map and four color lithographed plates. Paris, Librairie de Gide fils, 1822. In-8 (140x210 mm), full cream cloth, smooth spine decorated with gilt title on blond leather, gilt head, later binding (Lucie Weill). 304 pages, one folding map of the state of Tripoli (300x115 mm), 4 folding plates lithographed in color. Spine lightly shaded, slight browning on boards, minor rubbing to covers and corners, rare pale freckling, notably on title, a few pages a little dog-eared in upper corner. The advertised large map is here replaced by a smaller one. Original French edition, in the translation by Auguste-Jean-Baptiste Defauconpret, illustrated with a folding map and 4 lithographed plates in color, including the very first representations of the Tuaregs. George Francis Lyon (1795 - 1832), a British officer in the Royal Navy, relates here his voyage to North Africa, across the Sahara, between Tripoli and Mourzouk, where he was sent in 1818 by John Barrow to find the course of the Niger and the exact location of Timbuktu. Enriched with the bookplate of Colonel Ph. Milon engraved on a label on the flyleaf. A pleasant copy, in a signed binding.