ABSTRACT
This edition makes available once again Thunberg’s extraordinary writings on Japan, complete with illustrations, a full introduction and annotations. Carl Peter Thunberg, pupil and successor of Linnaeus – of the great fathers of modern science – spent eighteen fascinating months in the notoriously inaccessible Japan in 1775-1776, and this is his story.
Thunberg studied at Uppsala University in Sweden where he was a favourite student of the great Linnaeus, father of modern scientific classification. He determined to travel the world and enlisted as a physician with the Dutch East India Company. He arrived in Japan in the summer of 1775 and stayed for eighteen months. He observed Japan widely, and travelled to Edo (modern Tokyo) where he became friends with the shogun’s private physician, Katsuragawa Hoshû, a fine Scholar and a notorious rake. They maintained a correspondence even after Thunberg had returned to his homeland. Thunberg’s ‘Travels’ appeared in English in 1795 and until now has never been reprinted.
Fully annotated and introduced by Timon Screech.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |65 pages
Editor's Introduction
chapter |2 pages
Author's General Preface
part |102 pages
Author's Preface to Part Part I 1
chapter |9 pages
Departure and arrival
chapter |25 pages
Life in Nagasaki
chapter |30 pages
Journey to the court in 1776 1
chapter |21 pages
Residence in Edo, 1776 1
chapter |15 pages
A description of Japan and the Japanese, I 1
part |47 pages
Author's Preface to Part II 1