Volume 46, Number 20 · December 16, 1999
Wonders of a Lost World
By Tim Flannery
The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet by
by Georgius Everhardus Rumphius, translated, edited, annotated, and with an introduction E.M. Beekman
Yale University Press, 567 pp., $45.00
In the year 1698 a blind German merchant sat in a whitewashed cottage on a tropicisle in the southern sea, dictating intricate descriptions of crabs, sea-snails, 'metals, stones and other rare things' to an amanuensis. Four years later, as its author lay dying alone on his island, the manuscript was making its way toward publication in the bustling city of Amsterdam at what must have seemed a snail's pace. Three years later, in 1705, The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet finally came into being. Although reprinted twice early in the eighteenth century, it has been unavailable ever since. Now, after an interval of more than 250 years, Yale University Press has seen fit to reprint the work, making it available for the first time in English. Why should anyone bother reading, let alone reprinting or purchasing, such a book? Simply, perhaps, because it is glorious.
Review, 3825 words
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