Resa uti Europa, Africa, Asia, förrättad åren 1770-1779.

Upsala : J. Edman & J. Edmans enka, 1788-1793. Four volumes octavo, original uniform binding of marbled papered boards (an expected amount of rubbing), spines  with leather title labels in gilt; Vol. 1: pp. [26], 390 + [2] engraved plates; Vol. 2: pp. [32], 384 + [4] plates; Vol. 3: pp. [14], 286, 289-389, 400-414; Vol. 4: pp. [36], 285, 288-341 + [4] plates; original Swedish owner’s inscription to pastedowns of Vols. 1, 2 and 4: ‘Skänkt af Författaren till A. G. Ahlstrand, Upsala, den 20 April 1814‘, recording that the set was a gift from Thunberg to clergyman Anders Gustaf Ahlstrand (1789-1873), who had graduated from Uppsala in 1807 with a Master of Philosophy degree and later became a Doctor of Theology; each volume with the half-title present; a fine set of the first edition with an authorial provenance, the volumes housed in matching clamshell cases of olive cloth with gilt-lettered black morocco title labels.

First edition set of Thunberg’s travel accounts, with a direct association to Thunberg himself.

Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg, a pupil of Linnaeus and contemporary of Sparrman, was an important figure in the development of the science of botany. In 1771 he was commissioned by the Dutch to collect specimens from southern Africa, the East Indies and Japan for their botanical gardens in Amsterdam and Leiden. He sailed with the Dutch East India company to the Cape, where he spent three years collecting and describing flora and fauna in the colony, making three important excursions into the interior and also meeting and exchanging ideas with Sparrman, who joined Cook’s second voyage when it arrived at the Cape. Thunberg then visited Batavia (Java) for two months in early 1775, before sailing on to Japan, where he remained for almost a year as a privileged guest of the director of the Dutch settlement in the Bay of Nagasaki.

Before returning to Sweden – where, like his compatriot Sparrman, he had been made a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences – Thunberg visited London. There he made the acquaintance of both Sir Joseph Banks and J. R. Forster, encounters which undoubtedly led to the confluence of scientific knowledge gained on Cook’s voyages and Thunberg’s own. Thunberg’s later study of Japanese plants, Flora Japonica, was published in 1784 and was the first major treatise on Japanese botany published in the west.

Cordier, Japonica, 445 & Indosinica, 1384