William Hale Harkness — Temples and Topees

New York, Privately Printed at the Derrydale Press, 1936 . First edition. Cloth. A scarce limited first edition of this privately printed collection of travel letters, richly illustrated with photographs, exploring temples and cultures across Asia by financier and traveller William Hale Harkness. In the publisher's original brown cloth binding.A limited edition, being copy number one hundred and thirty five of two hundred copies privately printed by Eugene V. Connett at The Derrydale Press for the author.Richly illustrated with twenty nine monochrome plates of contemporary photographs, including a frontispiece, nine of which are double-sided. Collated, complete. A travel narrative presented in the form of letters from the author to his mother, recounting his journeys through Southeast Asia, China and Japan.William Hale Harkness (1900s–1954) was an American financier and philanthropist of the Harkness family fortune, his father co-founded Wrigley & Harkness and helped finance Standard Oil. A Yale and Harvard Law graduate active in geographical societies and clubs. In the publisher's original cloth binding. Externally, very smart. Slight fading to spine and extremities. Slight rubbing and bumping to extremities. Internally, firmly bound. Pages bright and clean. The odd small closed tear and chip to the fore edges of the preface and first contents page from a printing fault, not affecting the text. Very Good Indeed . Ill.: None Sttaed. Very Good Indeed .