Travel poetry from Egypt and Yemen

Irwin, Eyles. Eastern Eclogues; Written During a Tour Through Arabia, Egypt, and Other Parts of Asia and Africa, in the Year 1777.

€ 1.500,00

First edition of this poetry collection by the East India Company civil servant Eyles Irwin (1751-1817), born to Irish parents in Kolkata and based in Chennai (then Madras). Irwin's poetry on the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa was based on his own travels, and almost attempts to mimic the effect of a travelogue in poetry form. Each poem is titled with its location, the time of day in which it has been set, and most include informative and sometimes extensive footnotes. For example, a line like "Prepare, ye Loves! your myrtles ever-green, / To wreathe the column of Egyptia's Queen" has a paragraph-long footnote explaining Cleopatra's Needle, down to its dimensions. Other poems are set in Yemen (at noon, and inevitably in the imagined interior of a harem) and Tunis. A fourth describes a disturbing account of a Brahmin who flung himself from a height in protest of Company rule in India, which Irwin informs the reader that he personally witnessed.

Illustrated with an engraved scene on the title-page, "From a Drawing made upon the Spot", and with an advertisement of Irwin's account of his voyage up the Red Sea on the final verso.