Johannes Schefferus:
Histoire de la Laponie, sa description, l’origine, les moeurs, la maniere de vivre de ses habitans, leur religion, leur magie, & les choses rares du païs. Avec plusieurs additions & augmentations fort curieuses, qui jusques-icy n’ont pas esté imprimées.
Paris, chez la veuve O. de Varennes, 1678. 24,5 x 18,5 cms. [14] + 408 pp. + engraved title + 20 engraved plates + folding engraved map. Engraved illustrations in text on pages 108, 118, 178, 226, 242, 271 and 328.
Recent full leather gilt, red edges. Occasional short tears, scattered small spots and stains, a few insignificant corner losses (text unaffected), final leaves with worn and frayed outer margin. Old ownership inscription on an old preserved front flyleaf: ”ex libris Meynet canonicus st: agricoli avenion” (¨Canon Meynet at the Church of St. Agricola in Avignon”).
Collijn, Sveriges bibliografi 1600-talet, col. 828. Warmholtz, Bibliotheca historica Sueo-Gothica, 705, note.
Johannes Schefferus (1621-79) was a professor at Uppsala university, and his account of Lapland, the first substantial work on the Sami, was extremely successful. The first edition (1673) was in Latin, followed almost immediately by English, German and Dutch editions. The first Swedish edition appeared only in 1956.