A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope by Andrew Sparrman, 2nd English Edition

Author: Sparrman, Andrew 
Title: A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope 
Subtitle: Towards the Arctic Circle, and Round the World: But Chiefly into the Country of the Hottentots and Caffres, from the Year 1772 to 1776. 
Publisher: G.G.J. and J. Robinson 
Date: 1786 
Place: London 
Dimensions:  4tos. 27cm x 22.5cm x 4cm 

Vol1: Frontis+xviii+368pp+2plates
Vol2: viii+356pp+errata/binder’s directions+7plates+fold out map

A very good minus set. Contemporary ¼ calf over marbled boards. Titles in gilt to compartment label. Volume numbers gilt, volume 1 rubbed. Bookplates (cleaned) to paste-downs of both volumes. Head and tailcaps chipped.

Vol 1:
Hinges cracked and boards rubbed but held firm. Mild, scattered foxing throughout. 
Bookseller’s label to corner of front paste-down.  
Brown tape burn to title page recto and blank verso.Professional tissue repair to gutter: versos of f.f.e.p. and frontis engraving. Corner pp35-36 repaired.

Vol 2: 
Hinges cracked and boards rubbed but held firm. Mild, scattered foxing throughout, less so than vol 1. Brown tape burn to title page recto and blank verso.Professional tissue repair to front endpaper gutter. 14cm x 3cm open tear to pp327/8 sympathetically repaired.
Dwarf mice’ with 9.5cm closed tear, tissue repair. Map with fold corners reinforced and a few small closed tears, tissue repaired.

The second English edition.

Anders (Sometimes Andrew or Andre) Sparrman was a student of Carl Linnaeus and among the cohort of his “apostles” who, per Linnaeus’ Instructions for travelling natural historians (1759), set about meticulously collecting and cataloguing plants and animals and making careful notes on the customs, habits and lives of the settlers and autochthonous peoples they encountered. Sparrman arrived at the Cape in April of 1772 at the expense of the Swedish East India Company. During his time there he worked as a tutor, interpreter and a doctor. He initially made a few short expeditions into the interior, but in October 1772 HMS Resolution – the flagship commanded by James Cook on his second great expedition in search of the continent of Antarctica – landed at the Cape with the naturalists on board wanting an assistant. Sparrman eagerly accepted the post and set sail with the party for the next two years. When he returned to South Africa, he made an extended trip into the interior as far as the Great Fish River (Veld & Flora, 1980).

A handsome, very good minus set, with some foxing and minor repairs, housed in matching marbled slipcases.