Olaus Magnus, a Description of the Northern Peoples, 1555, Three Volume Set (Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, Second Series, Vols 182, 187, 188) by Olaus Magnus; P. G. Foote (Editor); Peter Fisher (Translator); Humphrey Higgins (Translator) - October 1996 and August 1998

London: Hakluyt Society. Complete three volume set. Works issued by the Hakluyt Society, Second Series, vols. 182, 187, and 188. Hardcover. Blue cloth over boards with gilt titles to spine and vignette of sailing ship Victoria on front board. As New books in Near Fine jackets. All three jackets show moderate rubbing and light edgewear. Vol. 1 jacket has a half-inch tear at the bottom rear of the spine. Heavy item; extra charge for Expedited or Express shipping.

First English-Language Edition. Originally published as Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus in Rome in 1555. Translated by Peter Fisher and Humphrey Higgins. Edited by Peter Foote with Annotation derived from the Commentary by John Granlund abridged and augmented.

Vol. I. October 1996. pp. xciii + 281. 50 woodcuts, 2 maps, ISBN 0 904180 43 3;
Vol. II. August 1998. pp. vi + 481. 191 woodcuts, ISBN 0 904180 48 1;
Vol. III. August 1998. pp. vi + 476. 139 woodcuts, ISBN 0 904180 59 X.

The Swedish scholar and prelate, Olaus Magnus (1490-1557), last Catholic archbishop of Uppsala, lived the latter half of his life in exile. His devotion to his country and his people never faltered, nor his determination to give them a glorious place on the European cultural map by his writings. On his famous Carta Marina, published in Venice in 1539, he promised a fuller account of the North and its marvels. This he accomplished in January 1555 when he issued from his own press in Rome his magnificent Historia de Gentibus Septenrionalibus. This volume of 815 pages, divided into 22 books and a total of 778 chapters, was lavishly illustrated with some 480 woodcuts, most of them closely relevant to the technical matters discussed by the author. The book was an immediate success, and half a dozen editions appeared in the century after Olaus's death. It became even better known in an epitome published in Antwerp in 1558, which was also frequently reprinted and translated. This appeared in English in 1658, but it is only with the present version, complete with illustrations, that the whole work is made available to the English-reading world. It is indeed only the second full translation to appear in modern times, preceded a Swedish version published in four parts between 1909 and 1925.

The three volumes are an ethnographic essay on an encyclopedic scale, touching on a vast variety of topics: snowflakes and sea-serpents, elks and artillery, sables and saltpeter, watermills and werewolves. Much of it was culled from ancient authorities, but much of it was derived from the author's personal observations, especially those made on his early travels in North Sweden. His pioneering and sympathetic account of the Lapps and their way of life has attracted particular attention. Olaus Magnus's immense store of fact and fantasy (much of the later drawn from the writings of respected predecessors) remained the chief fount of knowledge about the North for 200 years; and modern scholars, not least in the fields of material culture, social history and folklore, must still turn to the Historia as a prime source of information about conditions and beliefs in pre-Reformation Sweden and Scandinavia as a whole.