Rare, complete copy of one of the most important and comprehensive travel writings of the 17th century. This richly illustrated work includes a collection of voyages to America, Asia, and Australia, including Japan, Africa, Russia, the East-Indies, and the Near East. It is the earliest French collection of voyages of any importance, with highly interesting and important accounts on the geography, history, and languages of many parts of the world.
One of the great driving forces behind the work was Frances wish to increase colonial trade, and to compete with the other European nations, including Spain, The Netherlands, and England. The aim of the work was to gather the most up-to-date practical knowledge about navigation and foreign countries. It includes entries on Africa, the Far East, South East Asia, America, and Australia; together with several important maps. Descriptions relating to virtually every part of the world are represented in these two folio volumes and are drawn mainly from English (including Hakluyt and Purchas), Italian, French, Portuguese and Dutch printed and manuscript sources. They include John Greave's description of the Egyptian pyramids, the voyages of Anthony Jenkinson to Cathay, John Hawkins, Thomas Roe and Edward Terry to the Mogol court, William Methold to Golconda, William Schouten to Siam, Thomas Gages to Mexico, Abel Tasman to Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand, Francois Caron's relation from Japan, descriptions of the flora and fauna of India and China, Martino Martini's description and history of China, a history of Ethiopia by Manoel d'Almeida, Jerónimo Lobo on the Empire of Abyssinia and the source of the Nile, and other selections on Tartary, the Philippines, Mongolia, Persia, Arabia, Russia, etc. The American interest lies in the fourth part, which contains the voyages de Sieur Acarete à Buenos Aires...dans la rivière de la Plate & de la par terre au Pérou, L'Indien, ou Portrait au Natuel des Indiens by Juan de Palafox, Histoire de l'Empire Mexicain and Relation du Mexique, avec l'Histoire de la nouvelle Espagne by Thomas Gages.
The present work is the famous 1696 edition of the work, often considered the definitive edition. Because of this, contents and arrangement of individual copies vary, making this work bibliographically very complicated. Complete or nearly complete copies are hard to find, but the present copy is complete.
With the book plates of Elize Gulston and Joseph Y Jeanes mounted on the front pastedown of both volumes, a manuscript shelf mark on the first flyleaf of volume 1 ("No. 1902") and volume 2 ("No. 1903"). The front hinge of both volumes has been professionally restored, the edges and corners of the boards are slightly scuffed, the boards are somewhat rubbed. The work is very slightly foxed and browned throughout, several maps and plates have small tears in the margins. Otherwise in good condition. Camus, A., Mémoire sur la collection des grands et petits voyages, et sur la collection des voyages de Melchisedec Thevenot (Paris 1802), p. 293-341 (with extensive descriptions of the different parts); Church 672 (reissue of 4 parts only of 1681); John Carter Brown Libr., (1675-1700), pp. 335-341; Landwehr, VOC, 258 (parts 1-4 only, ed. 1663-1672); Leclerc, Bibl. Americana, 565; Muller, America, 3292 (4 parts only, ed. 1663-1672); Sabin 95334; Schilder, Australia Unveiled, pp. 203 and 412, cf. map 85; Tooley 23, no. 25, cf. Brunet V, 810 ff. (plate XI).