Nouveau voyage au tour du monde. Par M. Le Gentil. Enrichi de plusieurs Plans, Vûës & Perspectives des principales Villes & Ports de Pérou, Chily, Bresil, & de la Chine. Avec Une Description de l'Empire de la Chine beaucoup plus ample & plus circonstanciée qu celles qui ont paru jusqu'à present, où il est traité des Mœurs, Religion, Politique, éducation & commerce des Peuples de cet Empire
THE FIRST FRENCH CIRCUMNAVIGATION
Three volumes in one. Amsterdam: Pieter Mortier, 1728. First Amsterdam edition (fourth overall?).
Duodecimo (7 1/8” x 4 ¼”, 182mm x 108mm): π-2π2 A-N12 O6; *6 2A-I12 2K6; 3π1 3A-I12 [$7 signed; –*1]. 395 leaves (166, 120, 109), pp. [8] (blank, engraved frontispiece, title, blank, 4pp. dedication) 1 2-314 [10] (10pp. index); [12] (title, blank, 10pp. index) 21-227 [1] (blank); [2] (title, blank) 31-192 [24] (3pp. index, 20pp. advertisements, blank). [=viii, 314, x; xii, 228; ii, 192, xxiv] With 14 engravings: a frontispiece, 3 plates (2 in vol. II, 1 in vol. III) and 10 folding maps (9 in vol. I, 1 in vol. III).
Bound in the publisher’s blue drab boards. Fore- and lower edges untrimmed.
A superficial split to the front hinge, with some fraying at the head and tail. Sunned at the spine, extending a little along the peripheries of the boards. Mildly evenly tanned throughout. A remarkably unsophisticated example as-issued, with full margins and two pairs of unopened leaves (O4-5, 3H9-10). Ink shelfmark (“I.a.27.”) in an old hand to the front paste-down.
(Etienne? Guillaume? Guy?) de La Barbinais le Gentil (or Le Gentil de La Barbinais; 1692–1731) was, despite the acclaim of Bougainville, the first Frenchman to circle the globe. At the tender age of 22 he set sail — in a ship owned by his uncle, the Vainqueur — across the Atlantic for Brazil, Chile and Peru. He then joined the crew of the Jupiter to cross the Pacific via Guam, and stayed in China for some seven months before returning to France by way of the Cape of Good Hope. The present work, an account of that voyage recounted in a series of sixteen letters — a common literary device, allowing for the division of the material more or less chronologically — as well as a great many maps and plates, is particularly notable for its Chinese section (the second half of vol. I and all of vol. II), which predated Du Halde’s authoritative Description by a decade. Both lean heavily on the accounts of Jesuits.
The present example is distinguished for remaining in its publisher’s drab boards, with the deckle edges preserved. The only sign of ownership is the shelfmark, but likely the volume was seldom read, if at all. First published in Paris in 1725, just two examples (one at the BnF, one in Besançon) survive in institutional collections; similarly, the Paris 1727 edition survives in five examples (some with a 1728 imprint; a separate edition?). The Amsterdam edition — published by the master of French piracies, Pieter (“Pierre”) Mortier — is a little more common, though this survival in boards appears unique.
Alden & Landis 728/110; Borba de Moraes I p. 443; Sabin 38397.
Item #JLR0752
Price: $2,475