FORTUNE, Robert. Two Visits to the Tea Countries of China and the British Tea Plantations in the Himalaya; with a Narrative of Adventures, and a Full Description of the Culture of the Tea Plant, the Agriculture, Horticulture, and Botany of China ... Third Edition. London: W. Clowes and Sons for John Murray. 1853.
Two volumes, 8vo. Original white-flecked brown cloth by Remnant and Edmonds, London, boards with borders blocked in blind, upper boards with central gilt vignettes, spines decorated and lettered in gilt, rust-brown endpapers; pp. xii, [2], 315; viii, [2], 298; wood-engraved frontispieces, wood-engraved additional titles printed in red and black, 3 wood-engraved plates, and one folding lithographic map by A. Petermann, hand coloured in outline, wood-engraved illustrations in the text, two full-page; only minimal rubbing to extremities, browning to frontispieces and additional title-pages, otherwise only very light and sporadic spotting; modern bookplate inside front cover of volume one.
The best edition. Robert Fortune (1812-1880) made his name as a plant-hunter, notably in China, since he 'spoke some Chinese, and was generally able to pass himself off as a native of a part of China other than that which he was visiting. He disguised himself in Chinese dress to visit Soochow (Suzhou), then closed to Europeans, and through his resourcefulness and determination was able to survive shipwreck, attack by pirates, thieves, and bandits, as well as fever' (ODNB). This work republishes in edited form the accounts of Fortune's two journeys in 1843-1846 and 1851, which had previously appeared as Three Years' Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China (London: 1847, one volume) and A Journey to the Tea Countries of China (London: 1852, one volume), together with a new 'Preface to the Third Edition'. As the author states in this preface, 'As the style in which these works were brought out did not admit of their being sold at a price within the means of the great mass of the people, who are no doubt much interested in a country like China, and in the cultivation and manufacture of Tea, a beverage which is now indispensable to the poor as well as to the rich, - "that cheers but not inebriates," - Mr. Murray is of opinion that an edition slightly abridged will be acceptable; one which, while nothing is left out of importance to the general reader, will enable the work to be brought out at a smaller cost. I have, therefore, gone carefully over the two volumes, and have struck out some things in the first which experience taught me to improve in the second. I have also omitted some meteorological observations and dry botanical details, which, although most acceptable to the scientific and learned, are not very interesting to the general reader. Nothing, however, has been omitted which I believe of general interest'. The title-page's statement that this is the third edition appears to be slightly misleading, since only Three Years' Wanderings seems to have reached a second edition by 1853.
Although Fortune was undoubtedly a skilful horticulturist and botanist, he 'was also known as an entomologist and as a travel writer, as his books are full of lively incident and perceptive accounts of inland China, then little known to Europeans. His introduction of tea plants to British India was of long-term commercial importance, but he is chiefly remembered as one of the earliest of a line of plant hunters […] to visit China and bring back new plants capable of cultivation in Britain […] His fame was in part assured because his journeys coincided with an unprecedented demand in Britain for colourful flowering shrubs and ornamental trees as gardening gained popularity with the middle classes and as formal gardening styles were abandoned. But his successes were also due to his intelligence, perseverance, courage, and determination, which saw him rise from humble parentage to a position of considerable scientific success and the status of "gentleman"' (ODNB).
BM(NH) II, p. 598; Cordier, Sinica col. 2116; Yakushi (3rd ed.), Addenda and Corrigenda f10.
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