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Stein (Sir Aural) Innermost Asia

Code: 10163

Stein (Sir Aural) Innermost Asia. Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia, Kan-su and Eastern Iran. FIRST EDITION, 4 vols. large 4to. Original russet cloth, top edges gilt, Oxford: Clarendon Press,1928.

Vol.1 text: xl, 548, 288 photo illustrations on 44 plates; Vol.2 text: xii, 549-1160, 217 photo illustrations on 33 plates; Vol.3 plans and plates): xii, 59 plans, 124 photographic plates [13 in colour], 14 plates of sketches; Vol.4 map box: Maps of Chinese Turkestan and Kansu from Surveys made during the Explorations of Sir Aurel Stein, 1900-01, 1906-08, 1913-15;52 folding maps [index map, nos.1-47+A-D]. Total: 52 maps, 215 plates.

Limited Edition to 500 copies.

Provenance: Hill Library St. Paul (perforation stamp on titles, ink stamp on verso of each map, library numbers removed from spines, atlas, small split to the top and bottom joint).
Internally very clean and crisp. A comprehensive and scientific report of Stein's third expedition, 1913-1916, which took him to Kashgar, Khotan, across the Pei-shan,, the Turfan depression and the Pamirs to Samarkand before turning south through eastern Persia to Baluchistan. A professor at universities in India since 1887, the Hungarian-born explorer was financed by the Indian government and inspired by the earlier discoveries of Sven Hedin. He established the existence of a lost civilization along the Silk Route in Chinese central Asia, and became the first archaeologist to 'discover evidence of the Graeco-Buddhist culture of north-west India across Chinese Turkestan and into China itself' (ODNB).