SPARRMAN (Anders, M. D.) - Lot 699

SPARRMAN (Anders, M. D.) A Voyage to the cape of Good Hope, towards the Antarctic polar circle, and round the World: but chiefy into the country of the Hottentots and Caffres, from the year 1772, to 1776. Translated from the swedish original, with plates in two volumes. London, Robinson, 1785. 2 volumes in-4; illustrated with a frontispiece and 3 plates hors texte (including a folding map) / 7 plates hors texte in fine. Copy on laid paper. Brown stain in margin on a few leaves of volume 2. Fine margins. Contemporary fawn calf, slightly sunned ornate ribbed spine, ship's irons between boxes, cold check pattern on covers, gilt fillet around covers, small crosses in spandrels, gilt roulettes on edges and inside. First English edition, considered the best. Sparrman (1748-1820), a Swedish naturalist, travelled to South Africa with the Swedish East India Company. He made several excursions into the country in search of natural history specimens. In 1772, J.R. Forster hired him to accompany Captain Cook on his second voyage as assistant naturalist. Sparrman's account of Cook's voyage from 1772 to 1775 helped popularize Linnaeus' new system of classification and nomenclature by applying it to the new varieties of plants and animals he had collected. It also includes some of the earliest ethnological studies of the indigenous peoples of South Africa. apparently the best of the English editions.