[JOHANNES WILD.: Neue Reysbeschreibung einnes gefangenen Christen,wie derselbe nebben anderer Gefahrligkeit zum sibenden malverkaufft worden,welche sich Anno 1604 angefangen und 1611 ihr end genommen…Walfahrt Alcairo,nach Mecha …Jtem von der statt Jerusalem und der Statt Damasco, Cypern, Rhodis…Dessgleichen von der Statt Constantinopel… Nurenberg 1613] First edition of an extremely rare travel account for the Levant, here in fragmentary condition. Small 4to (18 × 15 cm). Old hard paper covers, probably late 18th-century rebinding, edges trimmed. Some pages with marginal restorations and stabilizations. Three leaves at the beginning with some loss of text. Missing: title, portrait, some pages of text. Present are 240 (of 262) pages of the travel aaccount and 17 (of 31) pages of the introduction . Missing leaves: pp. 11–14, 19–22, 99–102, 241–248, and 257–258, likely lost during rebinding. Text otherwise mostly clean and bright,few scattered spots,occasionally light stain and some wear in few pages. Overall in very good condition, but fragmentary. Johannes Wild (1585–c.1635), a German soldier, was captured by the Ottomans in Hungary in 1604. He became the first European known to have visited Mecca, sold first in Constantinople to a Cairo merchant and later to a Meccan master. After two years traveling around the Red Sea and up to Damascus, he was sold again in Cairo. Having once saved his master from Arab robbers, Wild was rewarded with freedom and money, and attempted to return home. Shipwrecked off Cyprus, he spent many months on the island before making his way back to Constantinople through the Greek Archipelago. With the help of the German diplomatic mission, he finally returned home seven years after his initial capture. Wild’s account is especially valuable for his descriptions of popular daily life in Egypt, Arabia, Cyprus, and the Greek islands. His time living among the Greeks on Cyprus provides unique testimony otherwise unavailable. Although fragmentary, this edition is so rare that it is absent from almost all major Levant collections (present only in Sylvia Ioannou Collection, vol. II, p. 556; not in Atabey, Blackmer, etc.). An almost unobtainable early travel account for the Levant. Reference: Tobler 91.