CERRUTI, Giovanni Battista

My friends the Savages. Translated from the Italian by I. Stone Sanpietro. Notes and observations of a Perka settler (Malay Peninsula). Como, tipograpfia cooperativa Comense, 1908. In-12 (177 x 125 mm) of 232 pp, 1 f.n.ch. of errata, 51 plates of photographic reproductions. Green half-percaline, smooth spine (period binding). Cerruti (1850-1914), son of a rich textile merchant and industrialist from the province of Savona. To avoid conscription he embarked for December 1871 as a third class sailor; he obtained his captain's license in 1881. He settled first in Batavia and then in Singapore, where he opened an export house for exotic fruits, which earned him a prize at the Turin exhibition in 1884. Cerruti made several trips to the rugged island of Nias and stayed several times with the Sakai, Semang, Negrites, Sams and Batacs. In 1886 he joined Elio Modigliani's expedition. His book tells of his stays among the tribes, until then almost unknown. The illustrations are reproduced from the author's photographs. Copy with a signed autograph letter to the initials on the title (letter truncated by the binder's knife), dated July 1909. Good copy, very rare on the market.