Földvári Books

An Early Account of America by a Hungarian

Nendtvich, Károly Dr.

Amerikai utazásom. Dr. Nendtvich Károly által. Egy földabrosszal és három kőrajzzal. Első (Második) kötet. [My Journey to America. By Dr. Károly Nendtvich. With One Map and Three Lithographs. First (Second) Volume.]

Pest: Heckenast Gusztáv, 1858. With a coloured plate representing Dakota people and a folding map of Eastern United States (printed by Roth A.; Pest, 1857). First edition. Two volume bound into one. In contemporary half cloth. (7), viii–xiv, (3), 2–292 and one plate; (9), 264 p. and a folded map. Some pages with pencil underlinings, markings and entries, stained title image and title page. Overall in very good condition.

Early Hungarian travelogue, focused on the American institutions and prosperity, the political, social, economic and education systems and the scientific achievements of the United States.

Károly Nendtvich (1811–1892) was a Hungarian physician, geologist, chemist and traveller, who made a two month journey in the Eastern United States in 1855. He visited the most important scientific centers to meet fellow professors, among many others the Yale and Harvard Universities and the Smithsonian Institution. In Philadelphia he met with the geologist Isaac Lea, visited the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. Nendtvich praises the Medical College as the first medical institution in the world established to train women in medicine, and the achievements of the US in the field of human rights, expresses his sympathy toward the abolitionists of the northern states.

Beside the scientific life and education system, Nendtvich reports about the development of industry in St. Louis even the Fairmount Water Works or the recently established Fairmount Park and the fair and exhibitions held there.

One of the earliest American travelogue by a Hungarian together with János Xántus, Ágoston Haraszthy and Sándor Bölöni Farkas. Beside the folded map of the American East, the title suggest three lithographs. It refers to the three illustrations of the book – as in all copies –, the coloured lithograph plate of Dakota people with calumet and the two images on the title pages of each volumes, the Capitol and the Smithsonian Institution.

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Price: €1,400.00