Noticias de la península americana de California

xliii+262+[4 ad] pages with fold-out frontispiece map, and 3 illustrations. Royal octavo (9 1/2" x 7") bound in original wrappers. Introduction by Paul Kirckhoff. Translated from the German by Pedro R Hendrichs. One of 750 numbered copies, out of a total edition of 770 copies. Copy 419. First Spanish edition after the German edition of 1772. Jean Jacques Baegert was born in Sélestat. A French city, located in the department of the Lower Rhine in the region of Alsace. He studied philosophy for two years and then joining the Jesuits in Aschaffenburg Bavaria Germany in 1736. He was professor of humanities at Mannheim in 1740, studied theology in Molsheim France and after his ordination to the priesthood on in 1749, was sent to Mexico as a missionary. In the Baja California peninsula exercised his apostolate, worked on the peninsula for 17 years until the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. He sailed from Loreto to start his journey back to Europe in 1768 and after a short stay in a Spanish monastery retired to the Jesuit college of Neustadt an der Haardt, where he died in 1777. In 1772 a work published anonymously but attributed to Baegert was published in Mannheim titled Nachrichten von amerikanisher die ... mit einen Halbinsel Californien zweifachen Anhang Falscher Nachrichten. The publication was well received and received favorable reviews. Important was the description of the conditions of the peninsula of Baja California. Baegert described the physical characteristics of the peninsula, customs, and language of the natives and also tells the story of the mission that he had established. Because of the ethnographic observations of the area, this work was of great value to the mid-nineteenth century. Condition: First front end paper detached, edge wear with some chips to wrappers, unread with edges still attached at fold else a very good copy.