Travels into North America; containing Its Natural History, and A circumstantial Account of its Plantations and Agriculture in general, with the civi

THE HOLLAND HOUSE SET. Second edition in English. Two volumes. London: T. Lowndes, 1772. Octavo (8 1/4"" x 5"", 210mm x 128mm). [Full collation available.] With 6 engraved plates and a folding engraved map. Bound in contemporary sprinkled calf (re-backed, with the original back-strip laid down) with the coronetted crest of Baron Fox gilt as a supralibros to the front board of each volume. On the spine, five raised bands. Sailing ships gilt to the panels. Author and title gilt to red sheep in the second panel, number gilt to black sheep in the third. Gilt scrollwork roll to the edges of the boards. Top edge of the text-block glazed black. Re-backed, with the original back-strip laid down and the fore-corners built up. Offsetting to the end-papers at the turn-in. A tall (lower deckles present at II.U3 and II.Y4.5) fresh set, with light and even tanning. Offsetting at the plates. Armorial bookplate of Holland House to the front paste-down, with scraped and cancelled earlier shelf-marks in ink and sanguine. Pencil notations to vol. II: p. 93, marking freezing and sailing dates of the Hudson; p. 98, against as section on the fort at Albany: ""its situation is very bad, as it can only serve to keep off plundering parties, without being able to sustain a siege""; and p. 125 on the inaccessibility of Fort Nicholson. Pehr or Peter Kalm (1716-1779) is unfairly overlooked; he is an important apostle of Linnaeus, and a contributor to John Bartram's 1751 Observations (the first scientific description of Niagara Falls). Yet in his own right he is an important naturalist and explorer. Like Bartram, he saw no limits to his exploration: plants and people, topography and weather held equal interest. He even ranks as an important anthropologist: his account of the Swedish community in Raccoon (now Swedesboro, PA) is among the best and most reliable accounts of early Swedish-American living; Howes praises the work as the ""most trustworthy description of Swedish settlements in 18th century Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania."" Kalm was sent at the behest of Linnaeus under the auspices of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science (better known now as the bestowers of the Nobel Prize) to find North American plants that would do well in Sweden. Nearly every reference to Kalm's account notes its reliability, which does rather set it apart from the works of his contemporaries. John Reinold (Johann Reinhold) Forster was himself a naturalist of renown, who taught at a dissenting academy in Warrington (now in Cheshire). The first edition in English (1770-1771) bears that unusual imprint. The present edition followed a year later. Holland House (the eponym of Holland Park in Kensington, west London; it was devastated in the Blitz) was the seat of the Barons Holland, the distinguished Fox family. All Whigs, they made Holland House the center of gravity in opposition to the Tory Pitts. Pitt the Elder was arch-rival to Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland (1705-1774), who served as Secretary of War and later Paymaster of the Forces, which enriched the family. The first baron's second son, Charles James Fox MP (1749-1806), was arch-rival to Pitt the Younger. He was a radical (very far to the left), who advocated for American independence and even dressed in the colors of the Continental Army. The pencil marginalia, generally to do with the unnavigability of the Hudson River and the unsuitability of the forts along her shores, suggest a skeptic of colonialism. From the collection of Robert Braun (b. 1928). Braun was born in Vienna and came to America in 1939 as a refugee aboard a Kindertransport. With his wife Nancy he became a devoted naturalist, building a bird-sanctuary and publishing the indispensable Concordance to Audubon's Birds of America, which identified the plants appearing in each plate. Purchased at his sale, Bonham's Skinner 12 November 2024, lot 28. Howes K 5, Sabin 36989, Stafleu-Cowan 3493.