KAEMPFER, ENGELBERT. The History of Japan, giving an Account of the Ancient and Present State and Government of that Empire. Engraved additional title and 45 engraved plates. Folio, later 18th-century calf, rebacked, lettering pieces off; endpapers

KAEMPFER, ENGELBERT. The History of Japan, giving an Account of the Ancient and Present State and Government of that Empire. Engraved additional title and 45 engraved plates. Folio, later 18th-century calf, rebacked, lettering pieces off; endpapers renewed; scattered foxing not affecting plates, light dampstaining in upper portion of Volume 1 text. London: for the Publisher and sold by Thomas Woodward,1728 [4,000-6000 First published the year before, posthumously translated from the author's manuscript in German, " . . . for more than a century the chief source of Western knowledge of the country. It contains the first biography of Kaempfer, an account of his journey, a history and description of Japan and its fauna . . . and six appendices, on tea, Japanese paper, acupuncture, moxa, ambergris,and Japan's seclusion policy" (DSB). The 1728 edition is enlarged with a second appendix containing an account of an English voyage to Japan in 1673. DSB VII, 205; Garrison-Morton 6374.11 note; Landwehr VOC 530 note.