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CHINESE BOTANY & AGRICULTURE, NORTH AMERICA, LINNAEUS & BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
TORÉN, Olof. Voyage de Mons. Olof Torée[,] Aumonier de la Compagnie Suedoise des Indes Orientales, fait à Surate, à la Chine &c. depuis le prémier Avril 1750. jusqu' au 26. Juin 1752. , publié par M. Linnaeus, & traduit du Suedois par M. Dominique de Blackford.
WITH: ECKEBERG, Carl Gustaf.
Précis Historique de l'Économie Rurale des Chinois, présenté à l'Académie Royale des Sciences de Suède l'an. 1754. ... , publié par M. Linnaeus, & traduit du Suedois par M. Dominique de Blackford.
WITH: BLACKFORD, Dominique de.
Précis de l'État Actuel des Colonies Angloises dans l'Amérique Septentrionale.
Milan, Reycends brothers, 1771. 12mo. With 3 title-pages, each with a different decoration (2 woodcut and 1 built up from rococco fleurons), 1 woodcut tailpiece and 3 decorated woodcut initials. French mottled calf, gold-tooled spine, marbled endpapers, red edges, green ribbon marker.
| Orders and Information | € 3250 |
First French editions of two books about China, especially interesting for their botanical and argricultural information, bound with the first and only edition of their translator's book on the English colonies, including a thirty-one-page French translation of the examination of Benjamin Franklin by the British Parliament. This last is particularly rare.
Torén (1718-1753), a botanist who served as chaplain to a Swedish East India Company voyage to China and India in the years 1750 and 1752, recounted his voyage in a series of letters in Swedish to his former professor Linnaeus in Uppsala. Torén died a year later, but Linnaeus published his letters as an appendix to Osbeck's narrative of the voyage (1757), adding his own preface. Dominique de Blackford translated them into French for the present publication, their first appearance in any language other than Swedish. Linaeus could send many of his pupils abroad because of his contacts with Count Cart Gustav Tessin and Magnus Lagerström, the director of the Swedish East India Company. Thanks to them, a naturalist accompanied every vessel the Company sent out.
Eckeberg (1716-1784), a captain for the Swedish East India Company but trained as physician and chemist, was another friend of Linnaeus and brought him numerous natural history specimens collected during his voyages. Linnaeus published Ekeberg's present treatise on Chinese agricultural and rural economy in 1757, and Blackford translated it into French for the present edition.
Blackford's own book is largely based on William Douglas, A summary, historical and political, ... of the British Settlements in North America (1749-1752) and Peter Kalm, En Resa til Norra America (1753-1761), but adds a French translation of The Examination of Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1766). Douglas (ca. 1691-1752) was a doctor and a botanist from Scotland. Kalm (1716-1779), a Swedish botanist, was a student of Linnaeus at the University of Uppsala and a friend of Benjamin Franklin. His work contains an account of the countries he visited and is a classic in the North American travel literature. The last part of the book is a translation of the account of Franklin's examination before the British Parliament on the effects of the Stamp Act in 1765-1766, an act that helped to set off the American Revolution.
Very good copy, with two small excisions in the head margin restored, not affecting the text. The backstrip is slightly damaged, the hinges cracked, and the inside front hinge reinforced, but the binding is structurally sound and most of the tooling clear. Valuable information on Chinese botany and agriculture, and Franklin's views on the Stamp Act.
