Up the Amazon and Over the Andes. With an Introduction by Admiral Sir William Goodenough, G.C.B. (President of the Royal Geographical Society).
London: Hodder and Stoughton, Limited, 1932. First edition. The South American travel account of British explorer, journalist, and Royal Geographical Society member Violet Olivia Cressy-Marcks (1895 - 1970). She also recounts the experiences that led to her embarking on her voyage to South America: partying in a Chicago jazz club, meeting Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in Los Angeles, and a trip to Mexico. She then traveled on a ship from New York to Brazil, where she began a voyage by foot and canoe down the Amazon River. She trekked over the Andes to Peru, surveying part of the northwest Amazon Basin on her journey. With thirty-six photo reproductions (including frontisportrait) and three maps showing the Cressy-Marcks’ routes. Some toning and foxing. Some foxing to edges and margins. A very good copy in the original pictorial dust jacket (very good). Publisher’s teal cloth. Octavo. 336 pp. Item #17449
Cressy-Marcks was already a world traveler by the time she visited South America. She had traveled around the world three times, completed an overland journey from Cairo to Cape Town in 1925, traveled through the Balkans and Saudi Arabia in 1928, and spent the winter of 1929-30 north of the Arctic circle travelling by sledge in Sápmi (then known as Lapland). As a journalist during the 1930s and 40s, Cressy-Marcks filmed the Eritrean and Ethiopian war fronts, interviewed Mao Zedong, and worked as a correspondent for the Daily Express in Chongqing during World War II and at the Nuremberg trials. Cressy-Marcks was broadly skilled and well-educated, and maintained a scientific grounding to her travels: she was well-respected as an archaeologist and ethnologist, having conducted widespread studies across Southwest Asia and Latin America, and was a fellow of both the Royal Asiatic and Zoological Societies.
Price: $250.00