Daniel Solander, the eighteenth-century Swedish naturalist and traveller, was a pioneer of the scientific study of natural history and one of the earliest collectors in New Holland. For many years a colleague of Joseph Banks, he sailed to the Pacific with Banks and James Cook in the Endeavour in 1768. With Banks, he described and classified more than one thousand new species. Solander's letters offer important insights into some of the foremost scientific issues of the day and his close association with such remarkable men as Carl Linnaeus, Banks, John Ellis and William Hunter.

The letters give little hint that English was not his native tongue. His warm and relaxed style reveals considerable linguistic ability and explains why the novelist Fanny Burney fondly called him a 'philosophical gossip' and why James Boswell declared, 'Throw him where you will, he swims'. This collection is based on international research. Some 180 letters written either by or to Solander were located and copied and appear in their original language.