Histoire Naturelle de l'Islande du Groenland

£1,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

First published in Hamburg in 1746 under the name Nachrichten von Island, Grönland und der Strasse Davis , this edition was translated from the German by Gottfried Sellius. With much zoological content, particularly focussing on whaling, and with a dictionary of Greenlandic language. In his book The First Crossing of Greenland , Fridjof Nansen cites this book as containing the first mention of ‘ski’ on the ‘Inland Ice’. A popular and influential work, a Danish edition was published in 1748 and a Dutch in 1750. There appears not, however, to have been an English edition. This copy from the library of Sir. R. Leicester Harmsworth, sold at Sotheby’s in 1948. Sabin, 1408a; Pilling, 113

• Year: 1750

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