The Pliny of the Indies. Georg Rumphius and his Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet

Georg Rumphius' The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet, originally published in 1705, has been translated into English and published in a beautiful scholarly edition by E.M. Beekman. It is a book about the shells of the Moluccas.The translation is published with all the original engravings and Beekman has added a solid 70-page introduction on Rumphius' life and work, and some 160 pages of annotations and references which bear witness to his extraordinary erudition and scholarship. Georgius Everhardus Rumphius, The Ambonese Curiosity Cabinet (Translated, edited, annotated, and with an introduction by E.M. Beekman. New Haven / London: Yale University Press, 1999.