1era Edicion DIARIO DE UNA RESIDENCIA EN CHILE

Journal of a Residence in Chile, during the Year 1822. And a voyage from Chile to Brazil in 1823. GRAHAM, Maria.
Bookseller: Hünersdorff Rare Books ABA ILAB (London, LON, United Kingdom) Bookseller Rating:
Price: US$ 5801.24

Book Description: London, 1824., 1824. Hardcover. Book Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. 4to. [4]f + 512p. With 14 aquatint plates largely after the author’s own drawings, and 10 wood-engravings in the text. Half morocco; gilt. First edition.

A good account of Chile in the throes of the Independence struggle with its first national government headed by Bernardo O’ Higgins who ruled the country as a dictator for a year. Maria Graham (1785-1843), the British traveller, writer and artist, lost her husband, an English naval officer during their voyage to Chile, and spent the following months mostly at Valparaíso as governess to Doña María of Brazil. She made perceptive and sympathetic observations especially of the influential personalities whom she met, including not only O’ Higgins and Lord Cochrane who then commanded the Chilean fleet, but also royalist leaders. The author was one of the first English women to describe life in South America. On her return to England she became the focus of a literary and artistic intellectual group and married the Royal Academician Augustus Wall Callcott in 1827. Her account of an earthquake in Chile in 1822 was later challenged by contemporary geologist, but her observations were supported by Charles Darwin who had seen the same phenomena in 1835 aboard the Beagle.This copy has a ‘View from l’Angostura de Paine’ bound in place of ‘Costume of Chile’, called for in the plate index. Old signature and stamp in title-margin.