FORTUNE, Robert.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

A Residence among the Chinese: Inland, on the Coast, and at Sea. First edition of Fortune's account of his third journey to China, describing travel inland and along the coast at a time when access to the interior remained restricted to Europeans. His narrative combines observations of landscape, horticulture, and industry, with particular attention to silk production and other natural and artistic outputs.Robert Fortune (1812-1880) was a botanist and the most famous British plant-hunter of the Victorian era. Fortune travelled widely in China from the 1840s onwards, at times adopting Chinese dress to move beyond treaty ports. He first journeyed to China in 1843 to collect plants for the Royal Horticultural Society, returning to the country in 1848 on behalf of the East India Company to procure silver-tipped tea. A Scottish botanist employed by the Royal Horticultural Society, he is best known for introducing tea plants to India, a transfer of lasting commercial significance, and for his role in the early development of plant collecting in East Asia.

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