THUNBERG, Karl Peter. Travels in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Performed between the Years 1770 and 1779. In Three Volumes. London, Richardson and Egerton, [1793].
Three volumes, 8vo. Contemporary full tree calf, spines ornamented in gilt and with contrasting lettering-pieces; pp. xii, 317, [2, blank], xv [index]; xiv, [2, errata and list of plates], 316, [xvi, index]; xiii, [2], 31 (Vocabilary of the Jpanese Language), 285, [2, blank], xv (index); engraved frontipiece and six plates (a few folding); bindings a little worn, traces of worming to the beginnings and ends of volujmes I and III, contemporary ownership inscriptions to all half-titles; otherwise very good.
Rare first edition in English. In 1795 a different publisher added a fourth volume. The Swedish naturalist and traveller had studied under Linnaeus at Uppsala University. 'After graduating, Thunberg intended to study medicine in Paris, but he got waylaid by Amsterdam and Leiden in the Netherlands. There he met Johannes Burman, another former student of Linnaeus, professor of botany at Amsterdam. Burman convinced him to travel in search of plants, which was a common vocation of Linnaean students, so much so that these itinerant naturalists were often referred to as Linnaeus’s "apostles." There were three places in particular where a Dutchman might be welcomed, or at least tolerated: South Africa, the Dutch East Indies, and Japan. Japan was on the list because, since 1641, the only foreigners allowed to visit Japan were the Dutch, and they were restricted to a small island, Dejima, in Nagasaki bay. No one in Europe knew anything about the flora and fauna of Japan, and Thunberg was encouraged by Burman to go there' (Linda Hall Library, online). Volume three is entirely on Japan, the others mostly cover Thunberg's travels in South Africa, with smaller portions on his early travels in Europe and Java. In the firt two volumes he 'accounts of his three journeys into the interior, traveling further than any previous visitor from overseas. These journeys rightfully occupy the greater part of his account of his visit to the Cape in his book about his travels but since the journeys occupied only about one third of the time that he spent at the Cape, he tells us what he had learnt of the laws, customs, occupations and modes of living of the colonists, slaves and indigenous peoples' (Historical Publications Souther Africa, online).
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