[JOSEPH BANKS] Bref, rörande en resa til Island MDCCLXXII.

Upsala : uplagde af Magnus Swederus … , 1777. First edition. Octavo, papered boards with title label to spine (edges rubbed, chips and small areas of loss), title with engraved vignette illustration of the Icelandic landscape and Geyser spouting water, ownership signature dated 1878 to front pastedown, pp. 20, [2], 376, [1 errata], with two engraved folding maps, one folding table and 11 folding engraved plates, another copy of the title vignette pasted on to the upper blank margin of p. 1, light scattered foxing, a very good copy of the first edition. Text in Swedish.

After accompanying Cook on his first voyage, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander intended to sail on the second circumnavigation but raised objections over the size and capacity of the Resolution and Adventure. Banks had wished to bring a party of sixteen men to accompany his field work, and despite some compromises the Admiralty was in the end simply unable to meet his somewhat arduous demands. Instead, Banks voyaged to the remote and little documented realm of Iceland where a number of important social, scientific and topographical discoveries were recorded. Uno von Troil, a Swedish doctor in theology who became Archbishop in 1768, was a member of Banks’ expedition, along with Solander. The first English edition appeared in 1780 (London : Richardson, Robson and Conant).

Two copies of the first edition are held in Australian collections (NLA; SLNSW).