Letter from Johann Reinhold Forster to a publisher in Leipzig, 30 August 1781, with transcription, ca. 1939?

MLMSS 7910

fonds

August 1781

873560

0.01 metres of textual material

Johann Reinhold Forster, author and naturalist, was born on 22 October 1729 at Dirschau (Tschew), Polish Prussia. His writings on natural history made him known in scientific circles, where he won the acquaintanceship of Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander and was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1772. When Banks refused to sail on James Cook's second expedition, he was appointed the position of scientist and took along his son Georg Forster as his assistant. Because of J. R. Forster's quarrel with the Admiralty, A Voyage Round the World in His Britannic Majesty's Sloop Resolution … (1777) had to be written by Georg Foster.

Reference:
Australian Dictionary of Biography Online. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/ (accessed August 31, 2009)

The holograph letter written in German, with Kurrent or Zutterlin script (with English transcript translation) is written to a publisher and refers to his forthcoming publication of a German translation of Cook's 3rd voyage.
He states that the required title of the book `Result of a voyage of discovery in the South Sea which was carried out in the years 1776 to 1780 under the command of Captains Cook, Clarke, Gore and King, faithfully reproduced from the original manuscript translated from the English and illuminated with notes by Johann Reinhold Forster' has been translated and will go to press the following week. A few words in the book title were later changed as well as the publisher (Berlin : Haude und Spener).
The letter details his objections to changes to his work and provides personal references for himself by (Johan Carl) Spener that he is an straightforward and honourable person in dealings with friends.

Transferred from the Manuscripts Collection Af 34/4, Sept. 2009