2 volumes. xliv, 414; iv, 192, 172 pp. 13 maps, charts, etc. including 9 folding; 20 copperplate engravings including 7 folding. (4to) 9¾x7½, period full calf, raised bands, spines gilt decorated, red morocco title labels. First Edition in French.
Shaw was an English scholar, natural historian and traveller, who, after receiving holy orders, was appointed chaplain to the English factory in Algiers in 1720. He held this post for twelve years, then travelled for three years across North Africa, passing through Algeria, Tunis, Libya and Egypt, and continuing into Palestine and Syria. He returned to England in 1734, and in the same year took degree of D.D. and became a fellow of the Royal Society. He held the chair of regius professor of Greek at Oxford until his death in 1751. In addition to the information Shaw imparts on the antiquities, geology and geography of the areas he visited, the work is also very important for the history of botany as Shaw describes in a supplement 600 plants which he had personally collected, 140 of which were previously unknown to botanists. Translated from the English edition of 1738.