“The Most Valuable and Accurate Work on South Africa...”
Very Scarce First Edition - Burchell’s Travels in the Interior
With Extraordinary Colour Plates and a Fine Map
Burchell, William J. TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR OF SOUTHERN AFRICA (London: Longman, Hurst, Reese, Orme, and Brown, 1822; 1824) 2 volumes. Rare First edition, and a set with fine provenance. Extensively illustrated with 10 very fine hand-coloured plates, 3 of which are large folding panoramic vignettes, 50 engraved vignettes and a huge folding map in the first volume, 10 hand-coloured plates, 2 of which are folding panoramas, and 46 engraved vignettes in the second, a total of 20 hand-coloured plates. 4to, in handsome full polished calf of the period, the boards with central gilt tools of famed banker and antiquarian Hudson Gurney (1775-1864) and double gilt fillet lines at the borders, the spine featuring elaborately gilt tooled panel designs within the compartments, elaborately gilt borders and central ornamental tools, the raised bands gilt, two red morocco labels lettered and ruled in gilt, end-leaves renewed, board edges gilt rolled, turn-ins stippled in blind. [xii], 582, 4; [iv], 648. A very handsome and desirable set, the paper quite fresh with only a hint of minor and very occasional foxing, the colourplates fresh and bright, the very large folding map in pleasing condition, the bindings handsome and in good order and with minor aging, the hinges sometime strengthened and restored incorporating the original spine panels.
"The most valuable and accurate work on South Africa published up to the first quarter of the nineteenth century, and embracing a description of a large part of the Cape Colony and Bechuanaland at this period... The illustrations in the volumes are characterized by great beauty and accuracy... The work is now extremely scarce, many copies having been broken up in the middle of the nineteenth century for the plates." - Mendelssohn. This copy includes the “Hints to Emigration”, which is bound in the end of Volume I. The location of this separately printed addition varies and is listed differently in the Abbey copy, British Museum copy and Tooley copy and does not have the half titles. Our copy is matching the Abbey copy. This copy has the half-page errata slip at the beginning of Volume I, which is not found in all copies.
William Burchell travelled in South Africa between 1810 and 1815 making one of the greatest scientific explorations of his day. He collected over 50,000 specimens, and covered over 7000 km, much of which was over completely unexplored terrain. The description of his journey, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, appeared in 1822 and 1824 and is now highly prized and of great scarcity. There is little doubt that a third volume was planned, since the second volume ends long before completion of his journey.
On 25 August 1815 he sailed from Cape Town with 48 crates of specimens aboard the vessel "Kate", calling at St. Helena and arriving back at Fulham on 11 November 1815. He traveled in Brazil between 1825 and 1830, again collecting a large number of specimens, including over 20,000 insects. The journals covering his Brazil expedition are missing, as are his diaries relating to his later travels. His field note books, detailing his plant collections, survive at Kew, and from those the latter part of his trip can be reconstructed.
His collection of plants, skins, skeletons, insects, seeds, bulbs and fish is considered to be the most extensive ever made in Africa, before or since. After his death by suicide, the bulk of his plant specimens went to Kew and the insects to Oxford University Museum. He is known for the copious and accurate notes he made to accompany every collected specimen, detailing habit and habitat, as well as the numerous drawings and paintings of landscapes, portraits, costumes, people, animals and plants. Mendelssohn I, p. 244; Abbey, Travel, 327; Tooley, 116.
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