Queen Moo's Talisman: The Fall of the Maya Empire.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1902. First Edition. Hardcover. Large octavo. xxiv + 86pp. Original cloth lettered in gilt on spine, gilt title & design on front board, top-edge-gilt, b&w frontisportrait with tissue guard on which is printed the author's facsimile signature, b&w plates, index. Alice Dixon Le Plongeon (1851-1910) was an English photographer, amateur archeologist, and author who travelled with her husband, writer and explorer Augustus Le Plongeon. She was one of the first people to excavate and study the ancient Maya sites of Chicén Itzá and Uxmal. In this volume she offers an epic poem "representing "as nearly as possible, the religious ideas of the Mayas, their belief in KU, the Supreme Intelligence; in the immortality of the soul, and in successive lives on earth before returning to the great Source whence all emanate; also their rites and ceremonies as gathered from traditions of the natives of Yucatan, the fresco paintings found at Chichen, and the books of ancient Maya authors." This is followed by a short musical score with five songs. One is a modern composition, the others "have been arranged to the metre of the two or three ancient melodies yet occasionally heard among the natives of Yucatan. The one to the rain gods is a versification (set to the tune even now used in a sun-dance) of an old Maya prayer translated from that language by Dr. Le Plongeon ..." Cloth quite darkened, discoloured and a bit grubby - more so at edges and spine, spine ends and corners bumped and chafed, spine ends bumped and chafed with a few tiny tears at upper end. Bookshop labels (one of "The Atlantis Bookshop" with their original Bury Place address) and remains of bookplate on front pastedown, owner's name on front endpaper, text clean. Overall a tight, unmarked Good + copy. Item #49838
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