De Beschryving van Japan, Behelsende een Verhaal van den Ouden en Tegenwoordigen Staat en Regeering van dat Ryk

Engelbert Kaempfer

Gravenhage & Amsterdam: P. Gosse en J. Neaulme, 1729

Folio. First Dutch edition of Kaempfer's History of Japan. Contemporary leather, 6 raised bands, gilt spine, leather spine label, marbled endpapers. Page ends washed red. 13 1/4 x 8 inches (34 x 20 cm); half title, engraved title, printed title, 50, 500 pp., with 46 (of 48) plates on guards, the large map present, but lacking plates 42 and 43.  Marginal soiling and spotting. Off setting and occasional spotting to maps. One map lacking one fold. Small tears to fold out map of Japan. 

Printed alongside the French edition by the same publishers after the 1727 English edition. Kaempfer's posthumous work was the chief source of Western knowledge about the country throughout the 18th and mid-19th centuries when it was closed to foreigners. Kaempfer travelled extensively  with the VOC (Dutch East India Company), visiting the Persian Gulf, India and Batavia before Japan. "He remained in Nagasaki from September 1690 to October 1692 and twice accompanied the chief of the factory at Deshima on his embassy to Edo (now Tokyo). In Nagasaki he made a profound study of Japanese history, geography, customs, and flora. it contains an account of his journey, a history and description of Japan and its fauna, a description of Nagasaki and Deshima; a report on two embassies to Edo with a description of the cities which were visited on the way; and six appendixes, on tea, Japanese paper, acupuncture, moxa, ambergris, and Japan's seclusion policy" (DSB). VOC, 531; Cordier Japonica 418 (English edition); Cox I:333; Garrison-Morton 6374.11 for his account of acupuncture; Howgego, I, K1; Landwehr; See Nissen BBI 1019 note; Wellcome III:376.