The Travel & Exploration Collection of over 2,500 volumes includes many from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Translated by Jacopo d’Angelo and edited by Nicolaus Germanus. Descriptive text is printed on verso of most maps within woodcut borders. Claudius Ptolemy’s Cosmographia was the authoritative atlas used by Renaissance mapmakers for more than a century.

Ou, Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Egypte pendant l'expédition de l'armee française. Publié par les ordres de Sa Majesté l'empereur Napoléon le Grand. Paris: Impr. impériale, 1809-1828. [19 Vols in 25.] In 1802 Napoleon ordered the Imperial Press to begin publication of the discoveries of a French expedition to Egypt. Initially the work was published in installments, and 400 copper engravers worked some twenty years on the Description. The resulting monumental work includes 837 copper engravings and 3,000 illustrations. The impact of this book was enormous: it not only paved the way for the birth of modern Egyptology, but also caused the “Egyptian booms” affecting much of Europe at the time. The Athenæum’s set was purchased with the assistance of Providence’s wealthiest citizens in 1838. It had originally belonged to the ultra-royalist French statesman Jules Armand, Prince de Polignac (1780-1847). Armand had the distinction of being imprisoned both by Napoleon (from 1804 to 1814), and by the Chamber of Peers (from 1830 to 1836), after his reactionary measures precipitated the July Revolution in France. After his banishment his effects were sold at auction.

To which is annexed, A Polar Pastoral, by a lady. [Attributed to Lucy Lyon]. With 40 plates from original designs. London: H.R. Thomas & Dublin: Westley and Tyrrell, 1825. Purchased with the Richard Jenks Travel Fund, 2010.

New York: Saunders and Otley, 1837. The Women’s Travel Collection is well represented in the Travel & Exploration Collection through the observations of women, whether making the Grand Tour, voyaging far to accompany their husbands, or traveling alone to satisfy a curiosity for first-hand knowledge of exotic lands and a yearning to establish independence. Women’s narratives reflect a body of literature that is rich in articulating the ordinary details of daily life and customs in different cultures. Authors represented in the collection include Anna Brassey, Isabella Bird, Ida Pfeiffer, and Harriet Martineau among others.