FORBES, Anna [aka Annabella Keith, or Mrs. Henry Forbes ] .: Insulinde: Experiences of a Naturalist's Wife in the Eastern Archipelago. By Anna Forbes . , Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, MDCCCLXXXVII. [ 1887 ] .

First edition. 8vo. 8" x 5.5" x 1.25" . pp.12/pp.305/pp.2/pp.24 plus folding map at rear. With a 2-page list of works published by William Blackwood and Sons, and a further 24-page publisher's list at end. Rebound in blue buckram with gilt titles to spine. Recent endpapers. Half title and printed title both present. Small blind stamp to the title page for Belfast Library. A few light marks (from previous use), otherwise clean English text throughout . A well preserved book with a coloured map at rear of "The Eastern Archipelago" by 'Stanfords' (strengthened a long folds and a few brown spots to the margins) shows The Malay Peninsular was marked with Penang, Perak, Salangore, Malacca, Johore and Pahang. Kedah and Tringano were then still part of Siam (Thailand). Sabah was still British North Borneo and the Sarawak region was marked as the larger Brunei. ** The author was the wife of Henry Ogg Forbes who wrote of his experiences in the Malay Archipelago in a work entitled 'A Naturalist's Wnderings in the Eastern Archipelago', published London: Sampson Low, Searle and Rivington, 1885. The author of this work writes in the preface: "... we shared for the most part the same experiences; but we looked at them from an entirely different standpoint". The narrative of Anna Forbes, accompanied her husband across the islands of what is known today as Indonesia. At the time of writing the islands of Indonesia were mostly colonised under Dutch Settlements. The islands of Sumatra and Java were then known as the Sunda Islands. Even at that time, the region was still generally referred to as the Malay or Eastern Archipelago. Contents include: descriptions of Batavia (now Jakarta) & Buitenzorg; the Botanical Garden; the Dutch colonial system; the relation with the servants; a description of Kupang (Timor); notes on the Chinese of Kupang; the Ambon & the Moluccas with notes on means of subsistence, the climate, the census of the Island of Waai, the Tanembar Islands, etc. *** Insulinde is the name Multatuli gave to the then Dutch East Indies , derived from the Latin "insula" = island and 'indiae' = India , which literally means; "the Indian Islands" . The current name Indonesia means the same, but in Greek (Book ref. 37962)  £150.00

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