Knox (Robert)
An Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon, 1681

First edition, 15 engraved plates, folding map of Ceylon, without the portrait (as usual), lacking license leaf before title and advertisement leaf at end, pencil-signed Reginald Rabett to title page and sketches of heads verso, map with slight loss, staining and laid down, most plates with several repaired tears, monkey plate laid down with tear through centre and loss, text with loss and strengthening in margins, numerous tears, staining, [ESTC R16598], early 20th-century bookplate of J. A. B. Baillie-Hamilton (planter at the Henfold estate in Lindula, Sri Lanka) to front pastedown, contemporary sheep, rebacked with later endpapers, fore edges worn, folio, Richard Chiswell, 1681.

***The first major work in English about Sri Lanka.

Robert Knox was a trader who was held captive on the island for nineteen years. His story was one inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.