MOERENHOUT, Jacques-Antoine - Lot 118

MOERENHOUT, Jacques-Antoine Voyages aux îles du Grand Océan, contenant des documents nouveaux sur la géographie physique et politique, la langue, la religion, les moeurs, les usages et les coutumes de leurs habitans ; et des considérations sur leur commerce... Paris, Arthus Bertrand, 1837. 2 volumes in-8 (215 x 129 mm) of XV, 574 pp. 2 lithographed plates for volume I; 2 ff.n.ch., VII, 520 pp. 2 lithographed plates, 1 large engraved folding map for volume II. Half tan basane, smooth spine decorated with oeser and gilt, decoration with small decorative irons illustrating a globe and a boat (period binding). O'Reilly, 876 & 6845; Hill, 1170; Forbes, 1065; Sabin, 49829 (4 plates and a map) First edition, very rare. This important work on the Pacific was written by the French consul in Tahiti (actually a Belgian national but also acting as U.S. consul in various Pacific islands). His account of his travels among the Pacific islands is rarely available on the market, with O'Reilly-Reitman describing it as "long an unobtainable book," and the book is really only known through the twentieth century facsimile. Moerenhout lived for many years in Chile before leaving for Polynesia with commercial ambitions. He first arrived in Tahiti in 1829 and made two more long stays in the 1830s. O'Reilly-Reitman describes his book as one of the best works on Tahiti in the early period, and notes that Moerenhout was on good terms with a number of Tahitian natives, even living for a time with Tati, the Papara chief. Moerenhout himself identified an old man in Raiatea, Harepo, as his best informant. He knew all the missionaries, including those who survived the first wave - Nott, Wilson, Henry and Davies - as well as their successors Pritchard, Williams and Darling. His book is thus an important record of life in the islands in the late 1820s and early 1830s. The natural history observations in the book come primarily from the Italian naturalist Bertero, who tragically disappeared, along with all his collections and notes, in the wreckage of one of the ships chartered by Moerenhout for his commercial activities. There are also some references to Hawaii, and a description of Pitcairn based on a visit by Moerenhout to the island in 1829. One of the plates shows the surviving mutineer from the Bounty, John Adams. Trace of wetness in the margin of the first volume, restoration in the margin of the map slightly touching the left edge with qq. figures. Nevertheless a very good copy, wide margins and preserved in its first binding.