A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope towards the Antarctic Polar Circle, and round the World; But chiefly into the country of the Hottentots and Caffres, from the year 1172, to 1776.

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1785. Hardcover. 2 Volumes, first edition.quarto in original polished calf with family crest on front and back boards. Bindings skillfully and expertly rebacked with edges reinforced, more recent maroon labels on the spine. illustrated with an engraved frontispiece to Vol. I plud 9 other engraved plates including 2 of Hottentot subjects and 7 of natural history ssubjects and a large folding map. Andrew Sparrman was born in Tensta, Uppland in Sweden in 1748, He was a naturalist, an abolitionist and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. He enrolled in Uppsala University when he was nine years old and began medical studies aged 14. In 1765, he went on a two year voyage to China as the ship's doctor. He saailed for the Cape of Good Hope in 1772 to work as a tutor. When James Cook arrived there at the start of his second voyage, Sparrman was taken on as an assistant naturalist. After the voyage, he returned to Cape Town in 1775 and practised medicine, earning anough to finance a journey into the interior. He reached the Great Fish River and returned in 1776. He went back to Sweden to continue his career during which he published several works. He died in 1820. This rare first edition in a contemporary binding was one of the earliest works on the Cape of Good Hope and the Southern African Continent and the Southern Oceans. His account of Cook's voyage as well as his exploration in Africa are described in this book. This trip has been described in Mendlesshon as the "MOst trustworthy account of the Cape Colony and the various races of people residing in it that has been published in the 18th century". . . . . N° de ref. del artículo KTK0099915

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