Steller, Georg Wilhelm | [Scherer, Johann Benedict] (ed.)

Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka, dessen Einwohnern, deren Sitten, Nahmen, Lebensart und verschiedenen Gewohnheiten.

Frankfurt & Leipzig, bey Johann Georg Fleischer, 1774. 8vo. viii + 24 + iv + 384 + 72 pp. + 2 folding engraved maps + 13 folding engraved plates. Engraved vignette on title. A few woodcuts in text. Contemporary half calf, spine in six compartments with red label, top of spine chipped, red edges. Ex “Historisches Seminar der Universität Hamburg” with their small oval stamp at bottom of dedication leaf and shelf mark on spine. First edition, copy on fine paper.
With a life of Steller by Scherer (24 pp.) and an appendix by Gerhard Friedrich Müller (“Geographie und Verfassung von Kamtschatka aus verschiedenen Schriftlichen- und mündlichen Nachrichten, gesammlet zu Jakuzk, 1737”, 72 pp.). “Steller’s desire to join the elaborately planned second Bering expedition as a research member was realized in 1736 when he was nominated a member. In the spring of 1738 he was appointed an assistant at the St. Petersburg Academy and left to join the other members of the expedition. In Enisejsk, he met the botanist J. G. Gmelin and G. F. Müller. In 1740 they arrived at Ochotsk, and Steller continued with Bering to Kamchatka to study nature and folklore.
In 1741 Steller sailed under Bering’s command on the St. Peter for America. He was the first natural historian to land on the coast of Alaska, where he collected specimens for several hours before the ship turned west. The return journey met with great difficulties. The crew, decimated by scurvy, was forced to pass the winter under great hardships on Bering Island. Steller survived; and returning to Petropavlovsk in August 1742, he lingered further in Kamchatka, where he pursued his research in natural history and tried to complete his manuscripts. In 1746, en route to St. Petersburg, he was arrested for alleged insubordination as he was approaching the Ural Mountains. He was soon released but died of a fever in the fall of the same year” (Sten Lindroth).
Steller’s Beschreibung is valuable especially because of his description of the life and customs of the inhabitants and because of the detailed illustrations by Friedrich Plenisner (engraved by F. A. Krebs, and others). Lada-Mocarski, 21. DSB, 13, p. 28. John Frazier Henry, Early Maritime Artists of the Pacific Northwest Coast, 1741–1841 (1984), pp. 3–4 & 6.

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• libraire: Lowendahl Rare Books Ltd (THAILAND)