MARCHAND, Étienne & FLEURIEU, Charles Pierre Claret, comte d - Lot 111

MARCHAND, Étienne & FLEURIEU, Charles Pierre Claret, comte de Voyage autour du monde pendant les années 1790, 1791, et 1792 (...) précédé d'une introduction historique ; auquel on a joint des recherches sur les terres australes de Drake, et un examen critique du voyage de Roggeween... Paris, Imprimerie de la République, An VI - An VIII [1798-1800]. 3 volumes of text in-4 (270 x 203 mm) and 1 volume of large atlas in-4 (303 x 229 mm). Text : XII, CXLIV, 628 pp. 2 ff.n.ch. (errata), one folding table (Wahitho language) for volume I ; XVI, 676 pp. 1 f.n.ch. (errata) for volume II ; XI, 431 pp. 1 f.n.ch. (errata) for volume III. Atlas: 1 blank f., 1 f.n.ch. of title, VIII, 158 pp. 1 f.n.ch. of table and 16 engraved plates (numbered 1-15, 6bis). Spotted boards, smooth spine with printed title (publisher's binding), modern slipcases. Sabin, 24751 & 44491; Hill (2), 612; Howgego, M-43; Lada-Mocarski, 54; see also Odile Gannier, Consigner l'événement : les journaux de voyage de Marchand, in "Annales historiques de la Révolution française", no. 320 (2000). First edition, very rare in the in-4 format. Relation of the second great circumnavigation voyage made by a Frenchman, a quarter of a century after Bougainville's, "a very important and authoritative work for the history of the northwest coast" (Lada-Mocarski). The work was written on the notes and the logbook of Etienne Marchand (died in 1793) by Charles-Pierre Claret de Fleurieu (1737-1810). Other sources were merged in the final writing: the report sent from the Ile de France in April 1792, the diary of the ship's surgeon Claude Roblet and, above all, the diary of Captain Prosper Chenal, second in command during the expedition, who was in charge of all the reconnaissance operations. The mission of the Solide, launched by private shipowners, was originally purely commercial: it was to explore the route taken by ships trading in skins between Nootka and Macao. Marchand left Marseille on December 14, 1790; his return, on August 14, 1492, went unnoticed because of the political events (four days after the events of August 10). A commercial fiasco, the voyage was a success from the point of view of navigation - the journey was very fast - and geography: Marchand explored the southern lands and discovered the islands of the northern group of the Marquesas (Ua Pou, Nuku Hiva, Motu Hiti, Eiao, Hotutu), which he baptized, opportunely, "Isles of the Revolution". Claret de Fleurieu's introduction constitutes a true essay on the exploration of the North Pacific between 1537 and 1791, with historical and critical remarks on the voyages of Drake, Juan de Fuca, Admiral de Fuentes, Bering, Chirikov, Cook, La Pérouse, Meares, Portlock and Dixon, Colnett, Don Haro and Malaspina. The illustration comprises 16 plates numbered I to XV (there is a plate VI bis), including 15 folding maps (engraved by Collin, Tardieu, Bouclet and D'Houdan), and one figure engraved by Fortier after Genillion (stilts of Santa-Christina, in the Marquesas). Small trace of wetness on the inside corner of the atlas. A nice copy, well preserved in its original publisher's binding. Text and atlas with all margins entirely untrimmed.