Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Turkey, Between the Years 1803 and 1807, by Ali Bey. Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, London, 1816. Two volumes. English. First English edition.
Description of the travels of the Spanish traveler Domingo Francisco Jorge Badía y Leblich in Africa and in the Middle East. Accompanied by 89 engraved plates: portrait of the author, four folding maps (a map depicting the route of his travels, map of Morocco, map of North Africa and a map of the Arab peninsula and the Red Sea), and 84 additional plates (some folding). The plates were bound, in both volumes, at the beginning, before the text. Two plates are missing.
Among the engravings: plans and drawings of views and various sites in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Alexandria, Mecca (folding plan of the town), Jerusalem (large folding plan of El-Aqsa mosque, and a plan of the interior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre), Nazareth (Mount of Precipice), and more.
Domingo Francisco Jorge Badía y Leblich (1767-1818), born in Barcelona, stayed in Morocco between the years 1803-1805 pretending to be a Muslim, descendant of the Abbasid caliphs (for that purpose he adopted the name Ali Bey el-Abbasi). After leaving Morocco he made a pilgrimage to Mecca (on his way there he passed through Tripoli, Cyprus and Egypt), and later on he visited Jerusalem, Syria and Constantinople. In Constantinople he aroused, for the first time, the suspicion that he is not Muslim and therefore had to terminate his tour and return to Spain. By pretending to be a Muslim Ali Bey succeeded in entering sites that were closed for non-Muslims, among them Mecca, the Temple Mount and the Cave of the Patriarchs and his descriptions of these sites are most probably among the first descriptions published for the European public at the time.
Vol. I: [1] engraved plate (author's portrait), XLII pp, [44] engraved plates, 339 pp. Two plates are missing. Vol II: [1] engraved plate (folding map), IX pp, [43] engraved plates, 373, [2] pp, 29 cm. Good-fair overall condition. Many stains on the leaves and the plates. Slight defects and tears at margins of leaves and some of the plates. Uncut sheets (at upper margins) in Vol II. New bindings and endpapers. Bookplate on the inner side of the front cover of Volume I.

Album von Jerusalem [Jerusalem album]. Lithographic printing, W. Zoeller, Vienna, [1866]. German.
A book in album format, with 25 lithographs after photographs by Alois Payer. Twenty two of the lithographs depict the city of Jerusalem, and the others depict Bethlehem. Below each lithograph appears a printed legend for the sites marked with numbers.
Alois Payer was the official photographer of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I. The photographs in this book were taken during Payer's visit to Palestine in 1865, and were dedicated to the Emperor.
Among the photographs taken by Fayer in Jerusalem, especially interesting are those depicting Jerusalem outside the walls (photographs at that time depicted mainly the holy sites). His photograph of Mishkenot Sha'ananim at its early days (plate no. XXII in the book) is one of the earliest and most important photographs of this neighborhood.
Enclosed: a folded leaf with the title of the book and captions in French for the 25 lithographs.
[2] leaves, XXV plates, 41.5X29 cm. Good-fair condition. Numerous stains throughout the book. Slight creases and defects. Tears to first leaf (with dedication to Emperor Franz Joseph), repaired with pasted pieces of paper. New binding and endpapers.
Literature: "First Photographs of Eretz Israel…". Editors: Eli Shiller and Menachem Levin with the participation of Dan Kiram. Jerusalem: "Ariel", 1989. p. 66.