A Tour of the Levant [UNIQUE PHOTO ALBUM OF 58 ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS FROM LEBANON AND SYRIA]

NP, 1930. Hardcover. g- to vg+. Oblong quarto. 3/4 brown leather over green cloth boards. String-tied binding. Red floral endpapers. 23 double-sided heavy stock paper leaves (last leaf blank). Contains a total of 58 original photographs glued onto the leaves, some with a single larger format image, and others with 2 or 3-image spreads of smaller size images. Almost all photographs are captioned below in French with a handwritten or finely-printed custom label. A few images contain notes in white pen, handwritten within the frame of the image. This undated album was assembled sometime after 1930, with images likely taken in the 1920s through the early (truncated) 1930s. Only two images are dated, one from 1927 and one from 1930.

Taken during the period of the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, the images in this unique photo album contain a wide array of content and famous locations, including aerial photographs, modern cities and towns (i.e. Beirut, Tripoli, Latakia, Aleppo, Hama, Damascus, Deir ez-Zor, Al-Rastan), ancient ruins, historical and archaeological sites (Palmyra, Baalbek, Byblos, Ain, Margat), natural features and landscapes (the famed Cedars of Lebanon, Nahr al-Kalb, the Orontes), local people, mosques, castles and fortresses, and military bases. Images range in size from 9 x 7" to 6 1/2 x 3 1/2".

Binding with very minor rubbing to extremities. Interior with light soiling to interior covers and rippling to most leaves, and many of the photographs. Most images throughout are quite clean, except for instances of light stains to the very corners of some photographs, due to the adhesive material used to mount the images seeming to have come through on the recto of the photograghs. Binding in very good+, interior in good- to very good-. (Inventory #: 54485)