LA PEROUSE, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de - Lot 31

LA PEROUSE, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Voyage autour du monde, publié conformément au décret du 22 avril 1791, et rédigé par M. L[ouis] A[ntoine] Milet-Mureau. Paris, imprimerie de la République, An V (1797). 4 volumes of text in-4 (310 x 237 mm) and 1 atlas in-folio (462 x 302 mm). Text: 1 engraved portrait, 2 ff.n.ch., LXXII, 346 pp.ch. and 1 f.n.ch. for volume I; 2 ff.n.ch., 398 pp.ch. and 1 f.n.ch. for volume II; 2 ff.n.ch., 422 pp.ch. and 1 f.n.ch. for volume III; 2 ff.n.ch., 309 pp.ch. for volume IV. Atlas: frontispiece title and 69 numbered engraved plates (including 35 plates and 34 maps). Text in pink boards, smooth spine with printed title (publisher's binding), atlas in plain boards. Ferguson, 268; Hill, 972; Forbes, 272; Lada-Mocarski, 52 First edition. Relation of capital importance. La Pérouse was commissioned by Louis XVI to continue Cook's work in the Pacific and to search for a passage to northwest America. He left Brest in August 1785 at the head of two corvettes, La Boussole and L'Astrolabe, which disappeared at sea in 1788. The atlas contains a title-frontispiece by Moreau le Jeune and 69 plates, i.e. 34 maps and 35 figures: the latter, engraved after drawings by La Martinière, Prevost and Duché de Vancy, depict scenes of mores, native types, birds, insects and shellfish; the maps, often double-page spreads, detail the itinerary of the voyage and give the profile of the coasts explored. A good copy with the text at full margins and containing the portrait of La Pérouse; atlas complete with engraved title and 69 plates.