Beschreibung:

DRAKE, Sir Francis (c.1540-1596) – Le voyage de l'illustre seigneur et chevalier Fran ç ois Dra c h, Admiral d'Angleterre, à l'entour du monde. Augment é e de la seconde partie . Paris: Jean Gesselin, 1627. Second edition in French, the first to include two parts . The earlier edition of this translation by F. de Louvencourt, Sieur de Vauchelles, was issued in 1613, with only the first part. The earliest published account of Drake’s circumnavigation, 1577-1580, was on 6 unnumbered supplementary leaves following p.643 of Hakluyt’s Principall Navigations (1589). This was probably compiled by Hakluyt from several briefer eyewitness accounts, one being Francis Fletcher’s original narrative. Translations in several languages followed ‘but the best of these versions was the one in French’ (Hans P. Kraus, Sir Francis Drake: A Pictorial Biography , website). The Golden Hind was the only ship to return three years and 36,000 miles after a fleet of five had set sail from Plymouth in 1577. Drake discovered the insular nature of Tierra del Fuego, and found upper California. Most importantly for Queen Elisabeth, the enormous treasure brought back yielded a profit to the voyage of 4600 per cent (£47 for each pound invested). According to J.M. Keynes’s Treatise on Money, this enabled the English foreign debt to be paid off, and enough was left over (£42,000) to capitalize a new venture, the Levant Company. The bibliography in D. B. Quinn's Sir Francis Drake as seen by His Contemporaries shows that no map was issued with either French edition of the voyage. Alden and Landis 627/20; Brunet II, 831; JCB II(1) p. 208; Sabin 20845 (the JCB copy). 2 parts in one volume, octavo (169 x 103 mm). Woodcut printer's device on title, woodcut initial and headpiece. With blank a4 (worm traces, most marginal, but occasionally affecting letters, G1-6 with severe tears to fore-edge). Contemporary vellum (slightly cockled and shrivelled, minor tears).