Note 691 — Chapter II
Reading edition
His book, Det gamle Grönlands nye Perlustration, etc., was first published at Copenhagen in 1729. Pilling (Bibliog. of the Eskimo language, p. 26) was able to find only a single copy of this book, that in the British Museum. Muller (Books on America, Amsterdam, 1872, no. 648) describes a copy. This first edition escaped the notice of J. A. Allen, whose list is very carefully prepared (nos. 217, 220, 226, 230, 235). There were two German editions of this original form of the book, Frankfort, 1730, and Hamburg, 1740, according to the Carter-Brown Catalogue (ii. 448, 647), but Pilling gives only the first. The 1729 edition was enlarged in the Copenhagen edition of 1741, which has a map, “Gronlandia Antiqua,” showing the east colony and west colony, respectively, east and west of Cape Farewell. This edition is the basis of the various translations: In German, Copenhagen, 1742, using the plates of the 1741 ed.; Berlin, 1763. In Dutch, Delft, 1746. In French, Copenhagen, 1763. In English, London, 1745; abstracted in the Philosoph. Transactions Royal Soc. (1744), xlii. no. 47; and again, London (1818), with an historical introduction based on Torfæus and La Peyrère. Crantz epitomizes Egede’s career in Greenland.