Our Notes & References

First edition of this adventurous tour made in 1849-56, important for Central Asia, Mongolia, but also nowadays Kazakhstan as Nick Fielding showed in his recent book ‘South to the Great Steppe”. The map is especially remarkable.

Atkinson, English traveller and painter, was inspired by Alexander von Humboldt to travel through Russia and Central Asia in 1845. A year later he journeyed to Siberia and on through the Kirghiz-Kazakh steppe – together with his wife Lucy, who was as adventurous a traveller as him. Their narrative describes many fascinating details, including their communications with Kazakh people and their stay with the Khalka Mongols and the crossing of the Mongolian plains.

Provenance

From the estate of Geoffrey Elliott (1939-2021), banker of Russian descent, author of books on 20^th-c. history.

Geoffrey and his wife Fay were noted collectors, especially of Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh and other literary figures. Russia was also an important theme: Geoffrey’s grandparents were interned in a Siberian tsarist prison camp before the October Revolution, and he focused most of his published works on the Cold War.

The Elliotts donated a significant part of their collection to the library of Leeds University in 2002, but kept the Russia-related items, which we consequently acquired.