TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD IN 1939Biblio.com
Photographic Album with 239 Original Gelatin Silver Photographs Documenting an Employee of the British-American Tobacco Company B.A.T. in Shanghai on an Around-the-World Journey and Return to China at the Outbreak of the Second World War. April–October 1939.
réf. FRE48Oblong quarto ca. 19 × 30 cm. 7½ × 11¾ in. 50 stiff card-stock leaves. Containing 239 mounted gelatin silver photographs the majority measuring from ca. 11 × 9 cm. 4⅜ × 3½ in. to ca. 7 × 9 cm. 2¾ × 3½ in.; a group of smaller photographs at the rear measuring ca. 5 × 6.5 cm. 2 × 2½ in. Two pairs of 9 × 7 cm. 3½ × 2¾ in. photographs joined together to form panoramas of Waikiki Beach and Pearl Harbor. The majority of the photographs captioned in white ink beside the images many with extensive captions identifying the locations and events depicted. Contemporary black patterned cloth album string-tied front cover with the generic gilt-lettered title "Photographs. " An exceptionally well-captioned visual diary compiled by an employee of the British-American Tobacco Company in Shanghai and his wife documenting an around-the-world journey undertaken between April and October 1939. What begins as a leisurely pre-war tour gradually transforms into a remarkable firsthand record of civilian travel at the outbreak of the Second World War. The opening section records the journey across the Pacific to Hawaii represented by twenty-two photographs of Honolulu and its surroundings including Waikiki Beach Pearl Harbor and the Honolulu airfield with aircraft of the K & T Flying Service. From there the travellers continued through Canada photographing Vancouver the transcontinental railway journey through the Rocky Mountains and Ottawa during the Royal Visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on 20 May 1939. The British leg of the tour includes views of the Clyde in Scotland Harrow Bunbury Cornwall with its mines and pumping engines the Lake District York Harrogate and Middlesmoor described by the compiler as "the tallest village in Yorkshire. " The tone of the album changes abruptly with the compiler's entry recording the "Outbreak of War " on 3 September 1939. Ten days later the party departed Liverpool aboard the T.S.S. Sarpedon in convoy noted by the compiler as the first British vessel to leave the port after the declaration of war. The voyage is documented in unusual detail with photographs and descriptions of the convoy's merchant ships and escorting aircraft together with the new wartime routine aboard ship including lifeboat drills anti-submarine lookouts defensive armament and gun practice. As the ship passed Gibraltar Port Said and the Suez Canal the atmosphere gradually relaxed and the photographs returned to scenes of games leisure and everyday life aboard. The final section records stops at Colombo and Negombo in Ceylon with numerous photographs of local streets architecture and inhabitants before continuing to Penang where the compiler photographed the Penang Hill Railway and the celebrated Snake Temple. The journey concluded in Singapore where the album ends abruptly marking the travellers' return to the Far East just weeks after the beginning of the war. The album offers a rare and exceptionally well-documented account of one of the last civilian around-the-world journeys completed immediately before global travel was transformed by the Second World War. Its detailed captions and broad geographical scope make it an important firsthand record of both the final months of peacetime travel and the rapid adaptation of civilian shipping to wartime conditions. hardcover
Globus Rare Books & Archives · États-Unis950,00 $US≈ 847,08 €
