In 1849, the year Humboldt turned eighty, a considerably updated edition of his essay collection, the Ansichten der Natur, came out with Cotta in Stuttgart. Initially published in 1808, then in a second edition in 1826, it was now appearing in its third and final version. One of the earliest pieces he had written on his return from the Americas, it gained in length as he successively added material of scientific interest and with aesthetic appeal that sustained the hybrid character of his prose. The first edition had comprised just three short texts: ‘Über die Steppen und Wüsten’ [On Steppes and Deserts], ‘Über die Wasserfälle des Orinoco’ [On the Cataracts of the Orinoco] and ‘Ideen zu einer Physiognomik der Gewächse’ [Ideas for a Physiognomy of Plants]. Twenty years later, the collection had been extended to include an essay on volcanoes and on ‘Die Lebenskraft oder das rhodische Genius’ [The Vital Force or the Rhodian Genius]. The final, two-volume third edition, covering almost 800 pages in the German original, also included a couple of new pieces, ‘Das Hochland von Caxamarca, der alten Residenzstadt des Inka Atahualpa’ [The Plateau of Caxamarca, the ancient capital of the Inca Atahuallpa] and ‘Das nächtliche Tierleben im Urwalde’ [The Nocturnal Life of Animals in Primeval Forests]. While the shifting character of the Ansichten der Natur charted Humboldt's development as a natural his¬torian and writer over more than forty years, these editions also reflected the political climate of their time. The Foreword to the 1808 edition deliberately spoke to ‘minds oppressed with care’ (AdN 8), gesturing to the Prussian defeat of 1806. Revolutionaries were stoning the building in which Humboldt was writing as he updated the third edition in 1848 (Humboldt 1908: 299).

Unlike their French counterparts, English publishers had seen no value in translating the first two editions. However, the preparation of a third German edition in 1849 galvanised Longman and associates, working in collaboration with John Murray III, and their rival Bohn into action. The translation by Elizabeth Sabine, titled Aspects of Nature, in Different Lands and Different Climates, appeared in autumn 1849 with Longman and Murray.