Voyage au Cap-Nord, par la Suède, la Finlande et la Laponie. Traduction d'après l'original anglais, revue sous les yeux de l'auteur, par Joseph Lavallée

First edition of the French translation prepared by Joseph Lavallée.

The atlas volume is illustrated with 16 plates (portrait, views, birds, insects), 12 engraved music plates (printed on 6 leaves), and a large folding map on thick paper (cf. Quérard, I, 6; British Museum (Natural History), I, 8 for the atlas only; Pritzel, 6 for the original English edition).

Bound in contemporary half calf, smooth spines gilt-tooled with floral ornaments, rolls and motifs, sometimes slightly faded, orange calf title and volume labels, marbled paper boards, a few rubs and minor defects along the joints, sprinkled red edges; the atlas volume in contemporary half brown calf, smooth gilt-tooled spine with a few small losses at foot, some rubbing to joints and boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns.

Our copy is complete with the Finnish bath plate, often lacking.

Explorer, naturalist and diplomat, Giuseppe [Joseph] Acerbi (1773–1846) undertook in 1798 and 1799 a major journey through northern Europe, travelling across Sweden, Finland, Lapland and up to the North Cape.

He is known as the first Italian traveller to have reached Lapland and the North Cape in 1799.

The account of his travels, originally written in English, was published in London in 1802 and later translated into French with some additions. The author records his observations of the indigenous peoples, their culture and customs, and gives a detailed description of Finnish steam baths (vol. 2, pp. 73–77). He also collected several poems from northern Finland. The atlas includes a large map of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and Lapland, showing the traveller’s route, together with numerous plates: a winter scene in Stockholm, departure from Grisselhamn (Sweden), a perilous crossing on ice, bear hunting, squirrel hunting in Finland, Finnish bath, two Lapp fishermen, a Lapp family, birds, insects, and Finnish music.