Lot 226: KALM, Peter (1717-1779). Travels into North America; containing its Natural History, and A circumstantial Account of its Plantations and Agriculture in general... Translated into English by John Reinhold Forster (1729-1798). Warrington [vols.

KALM, Peter (1717-1779). Travels into North America; containing its Natural History, and A circumstantial Account of its Plantations and Agriculture in general... Translated into English by John Reinhold Forster (1729-1798). Warrington [vols. 2-3: London] 1770-71.

3 volumes, 8υo (200 x 120 mm). Large engraved engraved map (slightly torn near inner margin) and 6 engraved plates of birds and animals. (U1 in first volume torn and repaired, some minor staining.) Contemporary calf gilt (chipping to heads of spines, upper joint of volume one splitting). Provenance: James Robertson (bookplate);
The Rt. Hon. Viscount Eccles (his sale Christie's New York, 18 November 1983, lot 156).

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, first issue with the Warrington imprint. Peter Kalm, a Swedish naturalist and student of Linnaeus, travelled in America between 1748 and 1751. One aim of his travels was to introduce new useful plants from that temperate region, and more especially to find strains of Morus rubra fit for introduction into Sweden. Kalm travelled in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Canada and gives a very important contemporary account of the Swedish settlements in New Jersey. The first edition was published in Stockholm in 1753--61. "One of the most important and reliable eighteenth-century accounts of American natural history, social organization and political situation" (Streeter). Howes K-5; Lande 482; Sabin 36989; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 3493; W.T. Streeter sale II:823. (3)