Francois Le Vaillant: Travels into the Interior of Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, Volume I (Van Riebeeck Society, Second series, No. 38)

lxvi, 194pp. Colour plate frontispiece. In brown-cloth covered boards with gilt lettering. 8vo. Cloth gently rounded at corners, small indentation on lower edge. Previous owners Internally neat, clean, bright and tight. In its original dust jacket, patchily faded, moderately bumped at edges, lightly rubbed at corners.

In 1780, a young Francois Vaillant, born in Suriname and raised in France, set out from Holland for the Cape to collect specimens of birds and animals from the distant and exotic region of the Cape, later becoming famous as the founder of South African ornithology, but at the time finding renown for writing of his travels and putting South Africa firmly in the minds of Europeans. Long out of print, this is a new translation of volume one of his ‘Travels’.