Letters on Iceland: containing observations on the Civil, Literary, Ecclesiastical, and Natural History, Antiquities, Volcanos, Basaltes, Hot Springs; Customs, Dress, Manners of the Inhabitants, &c. &c

Dublin: G Perrin for S Price, W and H Whitestone, J Potts, T Walker, C Jenkin et al, 1780 A fair copy of the 1st Dublin edition of Uno von Troil's account of his visit to Iceland with Joseph Banks and Dr Solander in 1772. It was first published in Uppsala in 1777 and the English version is taken from the German translation of 1779. Dr Von Troil studied divinity, oriental and northern languages and antiquities. He was introduced to Dr Banks when he was staying in England. The book is in the form of correspondence and contains a wealth of observation from the visit. It is in a contemporary full calf binding with gilt lined raised bands to the spine and red title label. There is leather loss to the spine which has also lost the head and tail band. The front board has a bumped top corner and a paler section towards the bottom of the board. There are a couple of scuffed areas which might have been wormed at one point. Bottom corner turned. The back board has a small area of leather loss at the bottom close the spine; a very turned bottom corner and leather loss to the top corner. There is wear to spine joints and early splitting at the base of the rear joint, but the binding is currently sound. There are some fragments of an old armorial bookplate on the front pastedown and a pencil signature on the fep. Contents: initial blank; half title; frontispiece (featuring a geyser as in the London edition, but a different engraving); title; contents; introduction; catalogue of writers on Iceland (xxvi); folding map; text pp 1-400; Finis. Contents are very clean with the occasional light mark eg a small ink spot at p 194. There is the occasional pencil underline. Small hole in text at p xxi/xxii affecting a couple of letters of text.