ON ANCIENT CENTRAL-ASIAN TRACKS. Brief Narrative of Three Expeditions in Innermost Asia and North-Western China.

London: Macmillan, 1933. First edition. With a color frontispiece, 147 illustrations, and a folding color map at the rear. Additionally, several fold-out panoramas. 8vo, original sienna cloth gilt lettered and emblematically decorated, t.e.g. xxiv, 342, [2] ads. A handsome, clean and bright copy, very well preserved, tight and strong, minimal aging, one corner a bit bumped. VERY SCARCE AND HIGHLY IMPORTANT FIRST EDITION. This book was based on a series of lectures Stein gave at the Lowell Institute in Boston at the request of the president of Harvard University and represents a succinct account of the explorations, antiquarian and geographical, which he undertook throughout his life in Chinese Turkistan and adjacent parts of Central Asia. While many of Stein’s career travels took him further south, he states that the memories of his years in the areas in “the deserts and mountains of innermost Asia are still as fresh and cherished as before.” Within the pages of this book can be found the accounts of sojourns across the Hindukush to the Pamirs and K’un-Lun, ventures into the cave-shrines of the Thousand Buddhas, and explorations in the Nan-Shan Ranges, all told in Stein’s knowledgeable and eloquent style. A cornerstone of Asian travel literature and scarce in such well preserved condition.