Morritt B.: “A Vindication of Homer and the ancient Poets and Historians who have recorded the siege and fall of Troy.” York 1798 First edition. Tall 4to 28,5x23cm a large uncut copy, contemporary blue hard boards slightly rubbed, spine damaged, upper cover detached, ex Libris of the English contemporary Geographer James Rennell with several annotations by pencil made by him in the margins of more than 20 pages (some extensive full page, but always marginal),text with few spotting and scattered marginal water stain in very few pages, plates clean, complete: 124p., double page map engraved map of Troad, 5 folded aquatints by Merigot and Mercati, overall almost very good. Morritt (1772-1842) traveled in Greece and Asia Minor in 1794-96 with Dallaway and the artist Mercati. His publication is a historical and geographical treaty to answer the question if a city of Troy ever existed, as that time had been questionable by Bryant . Morritt ,who had visited the place in the entrance of Dardanelles, was certain that the myth of Troy had solid historical events behind. The work is a fine example of an early treaty of history of geography of the area, coupled with contemporary remarks and information from the travel account of the author. The fine views of Mercati, a talented painter, are very nice, but what make this copy exceptional is that it was Rennell’ s own copy. Renell (1742-1830) worked in early 19th century on his own work for the topography of the plain of Troy (published later, Blackmer 1409), although his final monumental work for the geography of Asia Minor (Atabey 1033) and his map of Asia Minor had been published much later. More than 20 pages of the book are plenty with Rennell’ s annotations, in the margins of Morritt’ s work and made this book a unique piece of historical value for the modern history of geography of the Levant.