THE German naturalist, physician and traveller, Engelbert Kaempfer’s posthumously published History of Japan was for a century or more the principal source of the Western world’s knowledge of the country. It was published in a number of European languages in the later 1720s – but that was still some 30 years after his visit.
At Bonhams (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) on February 1 a twovolume, first English edition (second issue) of 1728 in JG Scheuchzer’s translation, containing appendices on such things as tea, paper, acupuncture, ambergis and the country’s policy of self-imposed seclusion from the wider world, sold at a record £7000.