Fine complete copy of the first edition of the first significant Russian work with plates coloured by hand. All captions for the engravings were printed in three languages, so that it could be supplied to the text volumes of any of the three issues: French, German and Russian. The work is divided into the following sections: I. People of the Finnish tribe (25 plates), II. Tatar people (30 plates), III. Samoyed, Manchu and Eastern Siberian people (20 plates). The plate volume of this copy contains additionally 20 plates of the fourth part - Mongolian peoples, Russians and other peoples, which was supplied to the German and Russian editions.

Johann Gottlieb Georgi (1729-1803) was a German geographer and chemist. In 1770 he studied at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Two years later Georgi went to accompany Peter Simon Pallas, a German zoologist and biologist, on his expedition through Siberia. "He was particularly interested in the region of the Lake Baikal. His description and mapping of this region remained one of the most accurate and significant for several decades. After his return to St. Petersburg Georgi published the observations he made during his trip. It is hard to overestimate Georgi's work. His records provided extensive and accurate ethnographical, economical, botanical and geographical descriptions of the large part of the Russian Empire." (NDB, Neue Deutsche Biographie VI, 242).

Three volumes in one accompanied by plates vol., quarto (29.5 x 22.5 cm). Title, [2], 108 pp.; title, [2], 228 pp.; title, [2], 164 pp., uncut, some leaves unopened; marginal waterstain in vols 1 and 3, heavier at the end. Vol. with plates : 25 + 75 engraved plates in fine contemporary hand-colour, with upper wrappers and index for I and II part. Modern half calf gilt over old marbled boards by Aquarius.


Cf. SK 1374; Lipperheide 133; Colas 1224; Brunet II, 618.