First edition of Thunberg's famous journey to South Africa, Indonesia, Japan and Ceylon in the years 1770 to 1779, in Swedish. "Contains material of great ethnographical interest" (DSB).
In 1770 Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828), a student of Linnaeus, received a travel scholarship. On his way to Paris, he met the Burman family in Amsterdam, via whom he was offered the extraordinary opportunity to travel to Japan on a Dutch merchant vessel. There he was supposed to collect plants for the Amsterdam botanical garden. Japan was closed to all foreigners except the Dutch, and, in order to pass for a Dutchman, Thunberg stayed three years in the Cape Province to learn the language. In this period, he made three journeys to the interior of the country, collecting and describing more than three thousand species, of which about one thousand were new to science. In 1775 he travelled on to Java, where he stayed half a year, and in August 1775, he arrived in Japan. Although his movements were restricted, he nevertheless managed to collect species via his interpreters. He left Japan in 1776, and travelled home via Java, Ceylon, and South Africa.
The present work contains his account of this important journey. "His narrative affords considerable information respecting the natural history of [Africa], together with notes on the Hottentots, Kaffirs, and slaves, and general remarks on the state of the Cape at this period." (Mendelssohn). The volumes were published in 1788, 1789, 1791, and 1793. Stafleu & Cowan list German, English and French editions.
With bookplate. Lacking the half-title to volume 2; extensive annotations in ink and pencil on endpapers and margins; some browning and foxing. The first edition of Thunberg's famous account. BMC NH, p. 2108; Cordier, Japonica, col. 445; Stafleu & Cowan 14357; cf. DSB XIII, pp. 391-393; Mendelssohn II, pp. 499-500; Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans, pp. 153-155.