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A TRULY RARE FIRST EDITION FIRST PRINTING OF ROBERT FORTUNE?S A JOURNEY TO THE TEA COUNTRIES OF CHINA, 1852, WITH HAND-COLORED MAP OF CHINA AND 15 ILLUSTRATIONS
A Journey to the Tea Countries of China; Including Sung-Lo and the Bonhea Hills; with a Short Notice of the East India Company?s Tea Plantations in the Himalaya Mountains by Robert Fortune. London: John Murray, 1852. Octavo, original gilt-stamped pictorial green cloth. First edition of this important travel narrative focusing on the tea trade and horticulture in China, with a map of China featuring hand-colored details, engraved title page, three lithographic plates (two tinted), and 12 in-text illustrations, in original cloth.
Educated as a botanist, Robert Fortune began his career at the Edinburgh Botanical Garden before moving on to the Royal Horticultural Society?s garden at Chiswick. ?In 1842 he was sent as collector to the society to China. He visited Java on his way out in 1843 and Manilla in 1845, returning to England in 1846 after many adventures from shipwreck, pirates, hostile natives, and fever. He entered the city of Loo-chow, then closed to Europeans, disguised as a Chinaman. Among the many beautiful and interesting plants which he then sent home were the double yellow rose and the fan-palm (Chamærops Fortunei) that bear his name, the Japanese anemone, many varieties of the tree-peonies, long cultivated in North China, the kumquat (Citrus japonica), Weigela rosea, and Dicentra spectabilis, besides various azaleas and chrysanthemums. He was appointed curator of the Chelsea Botanical Garden, but had to resign in 1848 on his return to China to collect plants and seeds of the tea-shrub on behalf of the East India Company? (DNB). It is from that expedition that this book derives. Fortune?s travels took him to areas that had rarely (or never before) been visited by Europeans and his account offers important information, even to those without any interest in the tea trade. However, for those with any botanical inclination or for those interested in tea or the 19th-century tea trade, Fortune?s work is unparalleled. On his mission, he collected 20,000 tea plants, encountered eight manufacturers, and amassed a number of tea implements, many of which he carefully details in this book. He also shares his horticultural finds, such as the Funereal Cypress, with the intention of popularizing them and transplanting them to English gardens and landscapes. Thus, this work constitutes an early and valuable guide to some of the lesser known areas of China and their plant-life.
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