Ruins of Desert Cathay: Personal Narrrative of Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost China....With numerous illustrations, colour plates, panoramas, and maps from original surveys. In two volumes. Vol. I. [II.] - 1912

London: Macmillan, 1912. The Discovery of the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas

STEIN, [Sir] M[arc] Aurel. Ruins of Desert Cathay. Personal Narrative of Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost China. With numerous illustrations, colour plates, panoramas, and maps from original surveys. In two volumes. Vol. I. [II.] London: Macmillan and Co., 1912.

First edition. Two octavo volumes. xxxviii, 546, [2, ads]; xxi, [1, blank], 517, [1, blank], [2, ads] pp. With title-page vignette by F.H. Andrews, colored frontispiece in Vol. I, black and white frontispiece portrait in Vol. II, and 339 black and white photographs by the author (including six folding panoramic views), seven color plates with descriptive tissue guards, and three folding colored maps.

Original smooth brick red cloth, front covers stamped in gilt with title-page vignette design, spines lettered in gilt. Top edges gilt. Minimal wear to extremities. Edges very lightly foxed. An about fine copy of this account of an important expedition with the maps in fine condition.

"The purpose of these volumes is to furnish the general reader with a personal record of the archaeological and geographical explorations which, during the years 1906-1908, I carried out under the orders of the Government of India in remote parts of Central Asia and westernmost China....Owing to the abundance of interesting discoveries made on this expedition, it will take years to complete the full scientific publication of its results in spite of the help afforded by the collaboration of a large number of savants....But whether working by the banks of the Isis or in the British Museum basements, amidst the condensed humanity of London, I never ceased to long for the deserts and mountains which had seen my happiest years of labour. How gladly should I forget all the toil which the results brought back from this journey have cost me, could I but feel sure of freedom for fresh explorations, in old fields and in those to which my eyes have, as yet vainly, been turned since my youth!" (Preface).

The expedition completed an extensive survey of the Kun-lun Range and explored many ruins in the desert far beyond the oases east of Khotan. It was on this expedition that Stein explored the western end of the Great Wall of China and discovered the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas.

BM 24: 164 (272). Taylor p. 248.

HBS 68660.

$2,500.