Born in a Salvation Army Home for unmarried mothers, James Reeve was sent to the misery of Rugby School, won a scholarship to Oxford, quicky moved to Florence and then Madrid where he studied art and the dissection of corpses, joined an enclosed religious order, but after a diet of water and lentils he rejoined the world to begin in earnest to paint. From a slum house in London he set forth to work in 'then' remote places - Uganda, Jordan, the Australian Outback, Haiti, Madagascar, Rajasthan, the Yemen and at last he found his proper home in Mexico - first in a house he built in a cloud forest, and then when tourists discovered the place, a tenement in the old centre of Mexico City. Encoraged by authors Rachel Billington, Selina Hastings, Alexander Waugh, Antonia Fraser and Tom Roberts, James Reeve has at last put his talents together in a series of chapters recalling travels, anecdotes and encounters which he has illustrated with his vividly colourful vignettes. Always travelling with the purpose of work, in Italy he meets Harold Acton, in the Outback he draws among other things dumps and decrepit dwellings, and here too is Madam Tongere catching a Wichetty grub. He meets Princess Elizabeth of Toro in Uganda and is captured by pygmies in the Congo forest. He paints the fearsome Mrs Gilbert Miller's portrait in Palm Beach and travels in Rajasthan with Diana Wordsworth, a last relic of the Raj. Living in Mexico for 35 years, among his friends are Doña Olive, the retired prostitute, and the Dominican nuns of an enclosed order who let him in to teach them how to make marmalade. Approximately 100 colour illustrations throughout these 314 beautifully designed large pages.

'The Secret Life of a Cameraman' is the sub-title of this book with a foreword by Sir David Attenborough. Gavin Thurston is the award-winning Blue Planet II and Planet Earth II cameraman who tells the extraordinary and adventurous true stories of what it takes to track down and film our planet's most captivating features. A wildlife photographer for over 30 years, and set against the backdrop of modern world history, Gavin had lurked in the shadows of some of the world's remotest places in order to capture footage of the animal kingdom's finest - prides of lions, silverback gorillas, capuchin monkeys, brown bears, grey whales, penguins, mosquitos. From journeys to the deepest depths of the Antarctic Ocean and the wide expanse of the Saharan Deserts, to the peaks of the Himalayas and the wild forests of the Congo, his experiences describe much more than just the incredible array of animals he has filmed. Full of heart-warming and heart-breaking stories, modest, down to earth and full of humour, Gavin invites us to come inside his hidden world and discover the hours spent patiently waiting for the protagonist to appear; the inevitable dangers in the wings and challenges faced and overcome; and the life-affirming moments the cameras miss as well as capture. With a small selection of colour and other photos, diary-like entries, you will be absorbed. 427pp, paperback.

A beautifully illustrated account of the history and archaeology of an iconic feature of the English landscape, part of the stunning Landmark Library series. Perched on the chalk uplands of Salisbury Plain, the megaliths of Stonehenge offer one of the most recognisable outlines of any ancient structure. Its purpose - place of worship, sacrificial arena, giant calendar - is unknown, but its story is one of the most extraordinary of any of the world's prehistoric monuments. Constructed in several phases over a period of some 1500 years, beginning c3000BC, Stonehenge's key elements are its 'bluestones', transported from West Wales by unexplained means, and sarsen stones quarried from the nearby Marlborough Downs. Francis Pryor is one of Britain's most distinguished archaeologists and he delivers a rigorous account of the nature and history of the monument and explores how antiquarians, scholars, writers and artists and 'the heritage industry' and even neopagans have interpreted the site over the centuries. Extremely well illustrated and beautifully produced paperback, 236pp, full page colour.

The Kisokaido route through Japan was ordained in the early 1600s by the country's then-ruler Tokugawa Ieyasu, who decreed that staging posts be installed along the length of the arduous passage between Edo (present-day Tokyo) and Kyoto. Inns, shops, and restaurants were established to provide sustenance and lodging to weary travellers. In 1835, renowned woodblock print artist Keisai Eisen was commissioned to create a series of works to chart the Kisokaido journey. After producing 24 prints, Eisen was replaced by Utagawa Hiroshige, who completed the series of 70 prints in 1838. Both Eisen and Hiroshige were master print practitioners. In The Sixty-Nine Stations along the Kisokaido, we find the artists' distinct styles as much as their shared expertise. From the busy starting post of Nihonbashi to the castle town of Iwamurata, Eisen opts for a more muted palette but excels in figures, particularly of glamorous women, and relishes snapshots of activity along the route, from shoeing a horse to winnowing rice. Hiroshige demonstrates his mastery of landscape with grandiose and evocative scenes, whether it's the peaceful banks of the Ota River, the forbidding Wada Pass, or a moonlit ascent between Yawata and Mochizuki. Taken as a whole, The Sixty-Nine Stations collection represents not only a masterpiece of woodblock practice, including bold compositions and an experimental use of colour, but also a charming tapestry of 19th century Japan, long before the spectre of industrialization. This volume is sourced from one of the finest surviving first editions and revives the series in our compact anniversary edition. Text in English, French and German. Colour, 15.6 x 21.7cm, 512 pages. New from Taschen.

Liverpool was the first port of call for American travellers arriving in England from 1815 when regular transatlantic voyages were introduced. The advent of steamships in 1838 reduced the length of the voyage but not the risk. During the early 19th century travel writing developed as a popular genre, as American visitors lingered in Liverpool before moving on into Europe and even the Holy Land and the East. Common themes are admiration of Liverpool's commercial energy combined with astonishment at how brazen the prostitutes were. A transatlantic visitor might not realise that a gentleman was not expected to carry his own luggage, and difficulty in understanding the local accent provides some amusing incidents. The Canadian Elizabeth Forbes expected Liverpool to be dirty, dingy and crowded, but found herself admiring the docklands architecture and clean pavement. Customs checks could be speeded up by a tip, though the officials made rigorous searches for smuggled tobacco. In 1863 the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, who served as American Consul, published his experiences in a collection of essays, including descriptions of walking round the slums. Henry James wrote about his first evening in Liverpool's luxurious Adelphi Hotel. The bird painter John James Audubon arrived in 1826 and moved on to Edinburgh where he found an engraver who illustrated his celebrated Birds of America and Herman Melville refers to the docks in his novel Redburn. Liverpool had been both a key part of the slave trade and also an important centre for abolition, and the former slave William Wells Brown settled there to write his memoir Three Years in Europe. Liverpool helped writers to liberate their voices in a free discussion of slavery, hosting lectures by speakers such as Amanda Berry Smith, a former slave, the evangelist Dwight Lyman Moody, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote "The hospitality of England has become famous in the world, and, I think, with reason". A fascinating collection of travellers' stories. 300pp, paperback, many illus including colour plates.

A rare exhibition catalogue produced by the Morgan Library and Museum New York in 2016, generously illustrated with drawings, etchings, photographs, letters, colour photographs, sepia images, exquisite colour artworks and paintings such as the Arch of Constantine seen from the Colosseum, an albumen print of the Theatre of Marcellus, a panorama of Rome from the Piazza Montecavallo, the Girandola at Castel Sant'Angelo in a spectacular etching with colour washes of a firework display. Described by Byron as the City of the Soul, Rome has always inspired fervid imaginings and visionary renderings of itself and its past, and projected a romantic idea onto artists and writers. Its passion, imagination, individuality, transcendence and nonconformity has led to a thriving artistic community, particularly in the century between 1770 and 1870 when visitors experienced the Grand Tour to the onset of mass tourism. Here is every kind of encounter from letters and diary entries, poems, novels, prints, drawings, sketching, watercolours, oil sketches and the exciting new medium of photography, collectively constituting the portrait of a very special and particular place that has touched the very soul. Villas, gardens, fountains to speaking ruins, this is a beautiful visual celebration and text by a Princeton University lecturer. 224 large pages, 21.6 x 28cm. Very well illustrated, includes colour.
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Colourful carved and decorated totem poles, beautiful beaded soft supple moccasins, fully beaded dresses and accessories, the deer dancer, the Bear Clan Hat, sky messages making material offerings to the spirits for guidance, bentwood boxes, chests, masks and canoes from British Columbia decorated with swirling symmetrical colourful pattern carvings, porcupine quills, birch bark and sweet grass used by the Ojibwe (also known as Chippewa) keep North American native traditional art alive. Here are garments of great celebrated leaders such as the shirt of Crazy Horse to pictures of Indians of All Tribes protesting at Alcatraz about their rights and properties, all about Indian and American education and the drive for justice and political recognition which led to new confrontations at Wounded Knee and Washington, DC. This magnificent celebration of Native American cultures and civilisations combines a wide-ranging text by scholars, writers and readers from tribes like the Standing Rock Sioux and Mohawk and Cherokee and Maya and many more, exploring the profound meaning of ceremonial life and its intimate connections with the land. There is a poignant chronicle of the impact of Indian boarding schools on Native families and cultures, the activist days of the 1970s and poems by Louise Erdrich and others and eloquent examples of a literary renaissance. 320 full page gorgeous colour illustrations depicting wondrous examples of indigenous cultures. 336pp in very large softback, 22.86 x 30cm, originally published in 2004 to commemorate the opening of the Museum of the American Indian.

This magnificent book is a collaboration between The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The National Gallery London. It gives a detailed chronology of Cole's life, retracing his travels as documented in his journals, letters and sketchbooks and discussions of over 70 works demonstrating his major contribution to the history of Western art. You may not have heard of him and we certainly hadn't at Bibliophile, but on a recent buying trip with US suppliers we fell in love with the gentle colours and scenes of this talented landscape artist. This book is a major re-examination of the father of the Hudson River School in relation to his European roots and travels. Thomas Cole (1801-1848) is celebrated as the greatest American landscape artist of his generation. Previous scholarship has emphasised the American aspects of his identity, and never before has the British-born artist been presented as an international figure. This special large monograph emphasises his travels in England and Italy 1829 to 1832 and his crucial interactions with such painters as Turner and Constable. The tome explores his renowned paintings The Oxbow (1836) and The Course of Empire cycle (1834-36) together with magnificent oils on canvas like Titan's Goblet of 1833, View of Florence from San Miniato 1837, his chalk drawings from the Acropolis in Athens and closer to his home a distant view of Niagara Falls with a moody sky and tranquil waters and two figures on a ravine which appear to be Native American Indians. Another mountain landscape is his scene from The Last of the Mohicans novel which the artist painted. As a teenager in Chorley, Lancashire, Cole worked as an engraver on the woodblocks used to apply patterns to calico, which explains his appreciation of colour. Technical comparisons are made throughout with paint samples mounted in cross sections from the Oxbow and the Consummation of Empire magnified, a look at paint techniques and materials, the influence of industrial England where Cole was born (near Manchester), and the influence of Turner is made in comparison throughout the book, complete with gorgeous colour images. Combining Cole's passion for the American wilderness and his horror of the industrial revolution in Britain, this led him to create works that offer a distinctive even dissident response to the economic and political rise of the United States, and the ecological changes then underway. 254 colour illustrations. 288 huge pages, 24.9 x 28.2cm.

Written by the host of BBC2's Villages by the Sea, here is a charming and unexpected journey through the quirks of England's villages throughout the ages. Dr Ben Robinson is an expert archaeologist, and we join him visiting villages from prehistoric to Roman to medieval times, all the way to today's modern, urban villages. We discover how landowners, governments and communities have shaped villages and why village greens, pubs and village halls exist, and the real meaning behind the names like Bunny, Yelling, Lover, Great Snoring and Slaughter. Entirely new villages are still being built today, but when did the first villages appear and why is this form of settlement so enduring and endearing? This is a compelling hefty tome studying archaeology, history and architecture, and at once a thoughtful, and enlightening look at our oldest homes and extraordinary heritage. There are amazing aerial images such as RAF Alconbury with its Cold War runway gradually disappearing as a new type of village is born with industrial parks, housing developments, schools, greens and a cricket pitch. Or we see the beautiful brickwork of the terraced houses in Cromford, Derbyshire, built by Richard Arkwright in 1776-77 to house his textile workers, alongside other colour photographs of late 15th century small bricks laid in English bond, and a 19th century gault brick wall in Flemish bond of various colours. Hugely entertaining, 421pp, many colour plates.

Geoffrey Chaucer might be considered the quintessential English writer, but he drew much of his inspiration and material from Italy. In fact without the tremendous influence of Petrarch and Boccaccio among others, the author of The Canterbury Tales might never have assumed his place as the 'father' of English literature. His life was eventful not only historically (after all he was born into the aftermath of the Hundred Years' War and lived through the Black Death) but also geographically. Owen takes us via Chaucer's capture at the siege of Rheims to his involvement in arranging the marriage of King Edward III's son Lionel in Milan and his missions to Genoa and Florence. Tracing Chaucer's journeys and his links to destinations such as Florence, Certaldo, Arqua, Pavia and Milan, Owen introduces us to the princes, knights and authors in whose circles Chaucer mixed. He vividly evokes descriptions of the Arezzo, Padua, and reveals the deep influence of Italy's people and towns on Chaucer's poems and stories. 216pp, map of Europe in the time of Chaucer circa 1360.