SCHEFFER (SCHEFFERUS), JOHANNES. Histoire de la Laponie, sa description, l’origine, les moeurs, la maniere de vivre de ses habitans, leur religion, leur magie, & les choses rares du païs. Paris, chez la veuve Olivier de Varennes, 1678.
Small 4:o (c. 245x190 mm. binding). (14), 3-4 (variant of leaf signed A2), 1-408 pp. Engraved extra title, 1 folding engraved map (Carte novuelle de la Laponie... par R. P. Aug. Lubin, who also translated the book from Latin into French), 21 engraved plates (all), engravings in text. Modern full leather (H. Vinlöv, Umeå, 1978), endpapers with some notes and staining. Some dampstaining to engraved title and map. Text with some soiling and staining.

Collijn 828-29; Marklund 2611. Early and important work on the laplanders, their history and culture. First edition published in Latin in 1673.
This was the first authoritative account of the Lapps since Olaus Magnus. The description is based on reports prepared by clergymen in the North of Sweden at the request of the chancellor Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie (1622-1680), a great patron of learning, to whom the first edition is dedicated. The author Schefferus (or Scheffer) was a professor at Uppsala University, where he had been invited in 1647 from Strassbourg. (Sten G. Lindberg, Swedish Books 1280-1967, p. 23.).