Beschreibung:

PÉRON, François (1775-1810) and Louis Claude de Saulces de FREYCINET (1779-1842). Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes, excut par ordre de Sa Majesté l'Empereur et Roi, sur les corvettes le Géographe, le Naturaliste, et la Goelette le Casuarina, pendant les Annes 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804 Rdig par M.F. Pron. Tome Premier [Historique - Tome Second continu par M. Louis Freycinet]. - Atlas par MM. Lesueur et Petit [- par Mr. L. Freycinet]. Paris: Imprimerie Impriale [vol. I] and Imprimerie Royal [vol. II], 1807-1816; Langlois [Atlas], [1807]-1811.
PÉRON, François (1775-1810) and Louis Claude de Saulces de FREYCINET (1779-1842). Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes, excut par ordre de Sa Majesté l'Empereur et Roi, sur les corvettes le Géographe, le Naturaliste, et la Goelette le Casuarina, pendant les Annes 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804 Rdig par M.F. Pron. Tome Premier [Historique - Tome Second continu par M. Louis Freycinet]. - Atlas par MM. Lesueur et Petit [- par Mr. L. Freycinet]. Paris: Imprimerie Impriale [vol. I] and Imprimerie Royal [vol. II], 1807-1816; Langlois [Atlas], [1807]-1811. 3 volumes: comprising 2 volumes text, 4 o (303 x 232 mm) and two parts in one volume atlas 2 o (352 x 258 mm). Text: engraved portrait, 2 folding tables, 2 general half-titles, errata leaf. Atlas: Part I: engraved title, contents leaves and 40 engraved plates including the folding panoramas of Sydney and Timor (24 hand colored). (Some offsetting onto tissue guards.) Part II: engraved title, contents leaves and 14 engraved maps (2 folding), including the "Carte Générale de la Nouvelle-Hollande" which is also listed as plate 1, part I. (Large folding map with marginal tear, some folds reinforced on verso, patching two small holes, some mostly marginal staining, most plates loose in binding.) Uniformly bound in 19th-century half calf and marbled boards, spines with two morocco lettering pieces (endpapers renewed, minor rubbing to edges). Provenance : Louis François de Marvel (bookplate). RARE FIRST EDITION of Nicolas Baudin's expedition to Australia, the great French voyage which rivalled Flinders's achievements. The expedition was commanded by Baudin for the Institute of France in 1800 and was charged with making a full and minute examination of the Australian coasts, particularly the southern coast "where there is supposed to be a strait communicating with the Gulf of Carpentaria and which consequently would divide New Holland into two large and almost equal islands." Baudin discovered some two hundred miles of coast between Encounter Bay and Cape Banks, thus completing the discovery of the unknown south coast begun by Flinders and Grant, and also reported in detail on Tasmania, Western Australia, and Sydney. Of further importance was the very large and excellent zoological collection prepared by Péron, naturalist on the voyage. The atlas plates to the historical narrative are by expedition artists Nicholas Petit and Charles Leseueur, and Petit's depictions of the aborigines are said to be "fairly true representations of his subjects." Vol. II of the historical narrative was completed by Freycinet after Péron's early death. The maps are superbly engraved, the large general map of Australia with a fine illustrated cartouche. The work was continued and completed in Freycinet's Partie Navigation et Gographie, 1812. Ferguson 449; Hill 1329; Nissen ZBI 3120; Sabin 60998; Wantrup 78a and 79a.