A Voyage to the East Indies:

£850 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

A scarce work by an important early European scholar of India and particularly Sanskrit. Paulinus of St. Bartholomew (1748-1806) served as a missionary in Malabar (Kerala) for thirteen years, during which time he gained an intimate understanding of the region and its language. In this work he recounts his travels, including his arrival at Pondicherry, but dedicates most of the work to various chapters on the geography, wildlife, culture, and religion of the Malabar region including those on coins, topography, animals, education, marriage practices, law, justice, language, religion, festivals, music and arts, and medicine. Includes descriptions of Tanjore and Tamil Nadu. With added natural history notes by Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-1798), translator of the German edition and official naturalist of Captain Cook's second voyage. First English edition; 8vo (22 x 14 cm); 1 engraved plate, armorial bookplate to pastedown; nineteenth-century straight-grained calf, boards gilt-ruled and framed in blind, spine in five compartments with gilt red morocco lettering pieces and gilt monogram, all edges and endpapers marbled, a touch of rubbing to extremities but a very good copy; xii, 478 pp.

• Binding: Hardcover

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