In 1673 Lucas Jacobson Debes, a Danish minister and scholar and then provost of the Faroe Island publisher his famous book Færoæ Et Færoa Reserata. This first ever overall presentation of the small North Atlantic archipelago and its inhabitants dragged the landmark in the litterary history of the islands. Only three years later John Sterpin's Englisg translation of Debes' work, A Description of Foeroe, was published in London.

The present book contains the full text of Sterpin's translation. In order to makre the fact filled work fully accessible to modern readers the text is accompanied by a plethora of explaining footnotes, three appendices, an index, and a comprehensive bibliography. The reedition, the first one ever published, is augmented by an afterword shedding light on the impact Debes' epoch making work had on the further exploration and presentation of the Faroe Islands in research and descriptive literature. Special attention is given to the role the Royal Society in London played for the translation of the book into English and for the dissemination of knowledge about the formerly unknown Faroe Islands.