Engelbert Kaempfer.
AMOENITATUM EXOTICARUM POLITICO-PHYSICO-MEDICARUM FASCICULI V, QUIBUS CONTINENTUR VARIAE RELATIONES, OBSERVATIONES & DESCRIPTIONES RERUM PERSICARUM & ULTERIORIS ASIAE, MULTå ATTENTIONE, IN PEREGRINATIONIBUS PER UNIVERSUM ORIENTEM, COLLECTAE, AB AUCTORE ENGELBERTO KAEMPFERO, D.
Lemgoviae, Typis & Impensis Henrici Wilhelmi Meyeri, aulae Lippiacae typographi, 1712. 4to, pp [xviii] + 912 + [xxxii], frontispiece, title page printed in red and black, 62 engraved copper plates, 12 woodcuts, 16 folding copper engraved plates. There is no dedication leaf or portrait, but these were rarely bound in. Slight text fault on pages 381/2 and 389/90, full contemporary calf, recently rebound with a new spine.
£4500.00
Engelbert Kaempfer (September 16th, 1651 Ð November 2nd, 1716), was a German naturalist and physician and is known for his tour of Russia, Persia, India, South-East Asia, and Japan between 1683 and 1693. He wrote two books about his travels. Amoenitatum Exoticarum, published in 1712, which we are offering here, is important for its medical observations and the first extensive description of Japanese plants (Flora Japonica). His History of Japan, published posthumously in 1727, was the chief source of Western knowledge about the country throughout the 18th century.
Kaempfer was born at Lemgo in the principality of Lippe, Westphalia, where his father was a pastor. He studied at Hameln, Lneburg, Hamburg, Lbeck and Danzig (Gdansk), and after graduating at Krakw, spent four years at Knigsberg in Prussia, studying medicine and natural science.
In 1681, he visited Uppsala in Sweden, where he was offered inducements to settle; but his desire for foreign travel led him to become secretary to the embassy which Charles XI sent through Russia to Persia in 1683. He reached Persia by way of Moscow, Kazan and Astrakhan, landing at Nizabad in Dagestan after a voyage in the Caspian Sea; from Shemakha in Shirvan he made an expedition to the Baku peninsula, being perhaps the first modern scientist to visit these fields of eternal fire. In 1684 he arrived in Isfahan, then the Persian capital. When after a stay of more than a year the Swedish embassy prepared to return, Kaempfer joined the fleet of the Dutch East India Company in the Persian Gulf as chief surgeon, and in spite of fever caught at Bander Abbasi he found opportunity to see something of Arabia and of many of the western coast-lands of India.
In September 1689, Kaempfer reached Batavia; spent the following winter studying Javanese natural history, and in May 1690 set out for Japan as physician to the VOC trading-post in Nagasaki. En route to Japan, the ship in which he sailed touched at Siam, whose capital he visited. Here he recorded his meeting with the Siamese Minister and former ambassador to France Kosa Pan.[1] In September 1690 he arrived in Nagasaki, the only Japanese port then open to Dutch and Chinese ships. Kaempfer stayed two years in Japan, during which time he twice visited Edo and the Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi there. When he visited Buddhist monks in Nagasaki in February 1691, he was the first western scientist to describe the tree Ginkgo biloba. He brought some Ginkgo seeds back that were planted in the botanical garden in Utrecht and can still be seen today. The "awkward" "Ðkgo" spelling appears to be an error Kaempfer made in his notes, a more precise romanization would have been "Ginkjo" or "Ginkio". During his stay in Japan, his tact, diplomacy and medical skill overcame the cultural reserve of the Japanese, and enabled him to elicit much valuable information. In November 1692 he left Japan for Java.
After twelve years abroad, Kaempfer returned to Europe in 1695, landing at Amsterdam. He was awarded a medical degree at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.
Kaempfer settled down in his native city of Lemgo, where he became the physician of the Count of Lippe. In Germany he published our book Amoenitatum Exoticarum (Lemgo 1712) which showed, among many other Japanese plants, an illustration of a camellia and introduced 23 other varieties, and was notable for its description of the electric eel, acupuncture, and moxibustion. His systematic description of tea as well as his other work on Japanese plants was praised by Linnaeus, who adopted some of Kaempfer's plant names like Ginkgo.
In 1716, Kaempfer died at Lemgo. Most of his manuscripts and many objects from his collection are preserved in the British Library, the Museum of Mankind, and the British Museum.
[Source: Wikipedia, with modifications]
You can contact me by telephone 01 404 41727, or email books@gyork.co.uk
If I'm at a fair, the mobile number is 07831 138011.
Back to Home page.