Travels in Peru

Travels in Peru in 1853. Panama, Peru, London Holograph with numerous sketches, watercolours, plans, maps and tables also by the author 1845-1860 (some in colour, some loosely inserted); with other printed illustrative material, and some photographs from early 20th cent. Peru. This fair copy, completed (? for publication) in old age, covers his travels from September 1852 to September 1853 from New Brunswick to Lima and Cuzco, and his return via Lima to Southampton. His detailed account includes archaeological descriptions of Pachacamac, Cuzco, and other Inca sites, and an account of the decisive battle of Ayacucho (1824) from his tour of the battlefield with a participant, as well as lively descriptions of the state of travel in Panama and Peru and of society in Lima and the provinces.

In the first volume is inserted a letter from W.H. Prescott dated 11 September inviting the author to stay at Pepperell, Mass., with an accompanying sketch by Markham of the house dated 15 September 1852.

The second volume includes, loosely inserted, a series of 10 letters from Victoria Novoa (and her family) dated Cuzco 1908-15 (who as a child had accompanied Markham on part of the journey), as well as notes on her life and family; other letters concerning the Borda and Ormaza families of Callao, Lima and Iquitos; and notes (with a portrait) on his former travelling companion, Francisco de Paula Taforo [1817-98], one of Chile's best-known liberal clerics, whose appointment to the Archbishopric of Santiago de Chile in 1878 was not ratified by the Vatican.

1845-1915

2 volumes 26 x 22 cm. Bound in 1/2 red morocco. Vol. I: 3ll., pp.226; Vol.ll: I l., pp.227-368 (=392) (last 2ll.bl.).

Purchased from the anthropologist and archaeologist T.A. Joyce [1878-1942], 1932.

Described in: Robin Price, An Annotated Catalogue of Medical Americana in the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1983).