
a new title in hand: Pilgrimage views		Three copper plates from a celebrated travelogue of the late seventeenth century. An addition to our titles on place.
planned for late 2025 or early 2026
While researching our earlier book Michael Burghers, Oxford engraver we were able to examine copperplate engravings by Burghers that are still kept in the archives at Oxford University Press. Several stood out: they were from Henry Maundrell's A journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter A.D. 1697, first printed by OUP in 1703. While chaplain to the 'factory' of the Levant Company in Aleppo, Maundrell joined fourteen others in a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. A journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem is his diary and travelogue. Unlike Robert Morison's Herbal, which was the subject of our recent Plates for a Herbal, it proved a considerable financial success and it was reprinted at the Press a further six times in the following half-century. This is the title page of my rather battered copy of the first edition (and yes, the engraving of the Sheldonian Theatre is also by Burghers): Burghers was a major contributor of illustrations to Oxford University Press at the time, perhaps the finest engraver working on copperplate. Over the seven editions he engraved thirteen plates for A journey, of which just three survive. This is one of those survivors that will be in our new book (full size it is 200mm wide): Following on from from the success of our earlier book on Burghers and of Plates for a Herbal (which included several of his large botanical engravings), a book about and around Maundrell's journey and Burghers's illustrations seemed inevitable, giving the opportunity to bring more of his engravings back to life with new pulls in a fine edition. Here are the three surviving plates, freshly cleaned by Master Printer Jim Nottingham ready for proofing: Our text introduces Maundrell and his journey and then examines in turn each of the thirteen plates that Burghers cut as illustrations as we follow in Maundrell's footsteps. A fascinating aspect of our research has been establishing where Burghers got the drawings necessary as the basis for his engravings; in several cases it is clear that, following the habit of the time, he plagiarised the work of earlier artists in earlier books. Finally, we record the details of the production of the several editions that OUP printed and the sale of the many copies produced. In keeping with our previous books relating to the early history of OUP we are hand-setting the text in Monotype Van Dijck. The text is being printed in a landscape format on an antique laid hand-made paper which was part of the paper stock that we rescued from the defunct printing house of St Hugh's Charterhouse monastery. The three plates will be printed on the rolling press by Master Printer Jim Nottingham, who printed the engravings for both Plates for a Herbal and Michael Burghers, Oxford engraver, and the pulls bound into the back of the book; the paper for the engravings will again be 250gsm Rives BFK. We will be including digital prints of all the engravings from those reference pulls that are still present in the Press Archives. Where we have traced earlier images which Burghers probably used as his models we will also include digital copies of those tipped in. About 68pp, including the pulls from the three extant plates and thirteen tipped-in digital reproductions. We are offering the opportunity to have an ad personam copy, with your name printed in the colophon. We will be issuing no more than 70 copies. We will of course be publishing updates in our newsletters, but in the meantime we welcome firm or tentative reservations. Price TBD.


*A note for our US customers*		Changes to US import rules

As of 29 August 2025 the US government is removing the USD800 duty-free limit on all imports into the USA. However, our understanding of the regulations (at hts.usitc.gov) relating to books is that they pass duty-free through customs. We hope this will remain the situation. If tariffs are applied we will aim to arrange to pay them at this end to save aggravation for customers at the receiving end, but we will need to pass on such costs.

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