A journey in Southern Siberia. The Mongols, their religion and their myths.

Boston: Little, Brown, 1909.

First edition. 8vo, pp. [2], xiv, 319, [1]. Photographic frontispiece (tissue-guard), folding map and 26 further plates some with multiple photos. Original red cloth, ends of spine slightly rubbed, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. Gilt lettering to upper board and spine, very bright. Bookplate with fishing scene to front endpaper, and small bookseller's stamp of The Oriental Book Store, Pasadena, CA. Prefatory note by Charles W. Eliot. A journey "through small, out-of-the-way towns in southern Siberia, a region whose inhabitants, the Buriats, had never seen an American, for the purpose of collecting primitive folk-lore and myth tales of the Moguls." Curtin was a linguist, folklorist, ethnographer and writer, who made the journey described in this book between July and September 1900. His objective was to visit the birthplace of the original Mongol race. He comes across Lake Baikal, Siberian plateaux, Olkhan, the Buriats, and experiences their customs, shamans, rites, myths, and folk tales. He died shortly before finishing the manuscript and the book was published posthumously.