H. Koster Voyage au Bresil 1818. First French edition

Henry Koster was an early nineteenth-century English explorer known for his, albeit short, life in Brazil. During his time there, Koster wrote about his experiences in Brazil as well as his observations on slavery, the coffee trade and exports, and the influence of Portuguese explorers. His book Voyages in Brazil was an important source on the history of Brazil, rivaled only by Robert Southey's account of the country. Southey encouraged Koster to write Voyages, a gesture to which Koster later responded by translating Southey's famous History of Brazil into Portuguese.

At the time of Koster's travels, Brazil was undergoing a period of transition from colonial administration to constitutional monarchy following the arrival of the Portuguese court in Rio de Janeiro in 1808 and the subsequent elevation of Brazil to a kingdom within the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves. The northeastern provinces Koster described remained central to the export economy, particularly in sugar and the early development of coffee, while slavery continued to structure labor and social relations. His observations capture Brazil at a moment when Enlightenment ideas, imperial reform, and long-standing Portuguese institutions coexisted, making Voyages a valuable contemporary record of a society on the threshold of political independence.