THE FORTUNE OF BRITISH TEA
FORTUNE, Robert.
Three years’ wanderings in the northern provinces of China, including a visit to the tea, silk, and cotton countries: with an account of the agriculture and horticulture of the Chinese, new plants, etc. … With illustrations.
London, John Murray, 1847.
8vo, pp. xiv, [2], 406, [2], 16 (publisher’s ads); half-title with woodcut vignette, 1 map, 3 tinted lithographs, 12 woodcut illustrations in the text; browned, quires M and Q partly coming loose, some wear to fore-edge; in nineteenth-century sheep, rebacked, two red morocco lettering-pieces to spine; corners and edges worn, endpapers renewed; twentieth-century signature to front endpaper.
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Three years’ wanderings in the northern provinces of China, including a visit to the tea, silk, and cotton countries: with an account of the agriculture and horticulture of the Chinese, new plants, etc. … With illustrations.
First edition recounting the travels through China of the Scottish botanist and traveller Robert Fortune (1812–1880), a frequent visitor to China who as agent of the Tea Committee became a pivotal figure in bringing Chinese tea to British India. Originally a botanist, Fortune travelled to China in 1843 with the intention of collecting plants for the Horticultural Society of London. ‘He spent three years in China, exploring nurseries and gardens in towns and inland areas little known to foreigners. He spoke some Chinese, and was generally able to pass himself off as a native of a part of China other than that which he was visiting. He disguised himself in Chinese dress to visit Soochow (Suzhou), then closed to Europeans, and through his resourcefulness and determination was able to survive shipwreck, attack by pirates, thieves, and bandits, as well as fever. He visited Java on his way out in 1843 and Manila in 1845, where he collected orchids, returning to England in May 1846. Among the many beautiful and interesting plants which he sent back to Britain were the double yellow rose and the fan palm (Chamoerops fortunei) that bear his name, the Japanese anemone, many varieties of the tree peonies, long cultivated in north China, the kumquat (Citrus japonica), Weigela rosea, Daphne fortunei, Jasminium nudiflorum, Skimmia japonica fortunei, Berberis japonica, and Dicentra spectabilis, besides various azaleas and chrysanthemums’ (ODNB).
Fortune published this account of his travels in 1847, shortly after his return from China. A lively narrative, it recounts his visits to Kuangtung, Fukien, the Chekiang coast and Shanghai, as well as the many adventures he enjoyed along the way, and is embroidered with a number of woodcut illustrations and lithograph plates. The following year Fortune returned to China, this time as agent of the Tea Commission, tasked with investigating how to import and cultivate Chinese tea plants and seeds in colonial India. His discoveries there eventually proved crucial in understanding tea production, thus enabling the rise of the great tea plantations of British India: an account of this journey, coupled with the existing material from his first expedition, was eventually published as Two Visits to the Tea Countries of China in 1852.
Abbey, Travel 543; Cordier, Sinica 205; Lowendahl 1056; Lust 1987.
