Franz Wilhelm Sieber: Travels in the island of Crete in the year 1817.London 1823 First edition in English, large in 8vo,contemporary red boards, text with some scattered foxing in few pages, generally clean and bright, complete 118p. and two engraved plates, overall in very good condition. Franz Wilhelm Sieber (1789-1844) was an Austrian naturalist and botanist. His journey to Crete was the first leg of a massive world tour. He traveled with a botanist's eye and a physician's mission.He arrived in Crete in 1817 and discovered and named roughly 20 new species of plants on the island. For him, the mountains of Crete were a botanical paradise.. As a doctor, he provided a grim but fascinating look at the Leper colonies in Crete and the widespread issues with smallpox and plague..Sieber was notoriously anti-Muslim in his writing and strongly Philhellene at heart. He recorded the Christian Cretans' complaints about Ottoman rule, making his book a significant pre-revolutionary testimony that helped set the stage for British sympathy toward the Greek cause.The publication of his account in 1823 in England fuelled the British Philhellenism.