£945
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs | 725
Auction: 8 February 2023 at 10:00 GMT
London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1862. First edition, 2 volumes, 8vo, contemporary green half calf gilt, half-titles, 10 tinted lithographic plates depicting views and ethnographic subjects, 4 hand-coloured lithographic botanical plates, 3 folding maps, errata leaf to volume 1, light rubbing to extremities, spotting to endpapers and half-titles, maps spotted and with short closed handling tears to inner folds
Note:
St John travelled east in the 1840s as private secretary to Sir James Brooke, 1st Rajah of Sarawak, accompanying him during his final operations against the Malay pirates in 1849, and on subsequent missions to Brunei, the Sulu archipelago, and Siam. 'Appointed in 1856 British consul-general at Brunei, he explored the country round the capital, and went further into the interior than any previous traveller ... He published his full and accurate journals, supplemented by other visitors' testimonies, in two well-written and beautifully illustrated volumes entitled Life in the Forests of the Far East ... He used this book to exact revenge on the missionaries who had complained of his behaviour' (ODNB).