LAURENCE OLIPHANT:THE RUSSIAN SHORES OF THE BLACK SEA IN THE AUTUMN OF 1852.EDINBURG 1853 Second edition, in 8vo, later leather over boards preserving original burgundy cloth, complete 380p. two folding plates and 26 woodcut illustrations on the text, text generally clean and bright with some light scattered spotting in few pages, overall in very good condition. Oliphant travelled widely over the northern coast of Black sea, an area populated that time with many thousands of Greeks.Specially the important cities were home to massive wealthy Greek merchant communities. He describes how the Greeks effectively control the very trade of the Black sea, specially the grain trade was dominated by the Greek shipping. He ventured further in south Russia and provide accurate pictures of its ethnic composition. The book became a best seller with the beginning of the Crimean war that year.