Journal of a Tour in Iceland, in the Summer of 1809 [Paperback]

The first overseas expedition undertaken by the celebrated botanist and future director of Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.Sir William Jackson Hooker, the eminent British botanist, is perhaps best known as a visionary director of Kew Gardens. His account of his first overseas expedition, made to Iceland in 1809, was written from memory after his notes and specimens were destroyed by fire on the return voyage.Sir William Jackson Hooker, the eminent British botanist, is perhaps best known as a visionary director of Kew Gardens. His account of his first overseas expedition, made to Iceland in 1809, was written from memory after his notes and specimens were destroyed by fire on the return voyage.Sir William Jackson Hooker (17851865) was an eminent British botanist, best known for expanding and developing the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew into a leading centre of botanic research and conservation. At the age of nineteen he undertook an expedition to Iceland, his first outside Britain. Unfortunately, all his specimens and notes were destroyed in a fire on the return voyage (described in Volume 1), but he was able, with the help of the notes made by Sir Joseph Banks on an earlier expedition, to write this account. His work was first published privately in 1811, but a second edition was published in 1813 and is reproduced here. Volume 1 gives a brief history of Iceland, before Hooker begins his detailed observations of the people and topography, and the flora and fauna he found. His accounts of the lives of the people of the island are of particular interest.Dedication; Preface; Introduction; Recollections of Iceland.