Joachim Nikolaus von Dessin (1704-1761) was Junior Merchant of the Cape in the service of the Dutch East India Company. His library was bequeathed upon his death to the Consistory of the Dutch Reformed Church in Cape Town. In 1820 it was deposited on permeant loan to the South African Public Library . The compilers of the catalogue were the Rev. Johann Heinrich von Manger (1767-1842) of the Dutch Reformed Church and Rev. Freidrich Rudolph Kaufmann (1793-1847) of the Lutheran Church.
There are 4,565 volumes in this catalogue, which are organised by format. The books listed under each format are classified into 11 subjects according to the classificatory system of German philosopher Leibnitz (1646-1716), first published in 1700. The catalogue also includes an index. The most populous class is theologia (1094 volumes). These include Bibles in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, German (including Martin Luther’s Bible) and English, and a book of Psalms in Dutch and Malay, published in Amsterdam in 1689. The collection also included major works of the European Reformation in German and French translations such as Luther’s History of the Reformation and Calvin’s Sermons.
The next most popular class is historia (952 volumes), which includes histories of most European countries and major cities, annuals, travels, voyages and encyclopaedias of history and then jurisprudence (300 volumes). The philosophia section (161 volumes) contains works by prominent Enlightenment thinkers, including Latin editions of all of René Descartes’ major works, as well as Thomas Hobbes’ Philosophical rudiments concerning government and society in both Dutch and French translations. The miscellanea section contains 442 volumes, and encompasses biographies, political discourses, and the occasional imaginative work such as Brand’s Poems..
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