Découvertes dans la Mer du Sud. Nouvelles de M. De La Peyrouse, Jusqu'en 1794. Traces de son passage trouvées en diverses isles et terres de l'Océan Pacifique; grande Isle peuplée d'émigrés français.
Year: 1798
Edition: 1st
Publisher: Paris, Éverat
Category: Australia & Pacific
(n.d. but 1798), 8vo, half title, 397, i (errata) pp., contemporary half calf with morocco gilt label. Ex Bibliotheca Didina et Pinguina (Bubb Kuyper; their sales nr. 41, November 2004, lot nr. 1582).
Lacks last free endpaper. Slight occasional foxing/browning, last page slightly soiled. Covers rubbed. Stain plus a hole in the bottom margin of page 373, not affecting the text. Written name on titlepage.
Ferguson 225: "A fictitious account. The greater portion is devoted to the description of a supposed island in the South Seas, inhabited by a community of refugees who had escaped the horrors of the French Revolution, and had established a republic there on socialist principles."
First edition of this rare book with a fictitious account of the fate of the La Perouse expedition after they left Botany Bay.
Published anonymously.
Ferguson 225, Kroepelin 283, Sabin 38958.
The Parsons Collection, part II, # 220 (Hordern House Rare Books, 2006): "Doubt about the publication of this rare book (Ferguson, Sabin and Kroepelien say 1795, while Gove and the Library of Congress catalog say 1798) has finally been resolved by David Forbes' discovery of a contemporary advertisement confirming the later date."
Click on a picture to enlarge.
