Japan Extolled and Decried

This edition makes available once again Thunberg's extraordinary writings on Japan, complete with illustrations. Carl Peter Thunberg, pupil and successor of Linnaeus-of the great fathers of modern science-spent 18 fascinating months in the notoriously inaccessible Japan of 1775-1776, and this is his story.

Carl Peter Thunberg studied at Uppsala University in Sweden where he was a favorite student of the great Linnaeus, father of modern scientific classification. He determined to travel the world and enlisted as a physician with the Dutch East India Company. He arrived in Japan in the summer of 1775 and stayed one year, the maximum continuous term permitted for a European at the time. He traveled to Edo (modern Tokyo) where he became friends with the shogun's private physician, Katsuragawa Hosshu, a notorious rake. They maintained a correspondence even after the Swede had returned to his homeland. Thunberg's 'Travels' appeared in English in 1795 and was never reprinted. This edition makes available once again Thunberg's extraordinary writings on Japan, complete with illustrations. Fully annotated and introduced by Timon Screech.