BORY DE SAINT-VINCENT, Jean-Baptiste-Geneviève-Marcellin

Voyage in the four main islands of the seas of Africa, made by order of the government, during the years nine and ten of the Republic (1801-1802). With the story of the crossing of Captain Baudin to Port Louis of Mauritius. Paris, Buisson, An XIII (1804). 3 volumes in-8 (210 x 132 mm) and an atlas in folio (355 x 260 mm). Text : XV, 408 pp. (without the 4 pages of catalog at the end, removed by the binder) volume I; 2 ff.n.ch., 431 pp. for volume II; 2 ff.n.ch., 473 pp. for volume III. Atlas: 4 pp. and 58 engraved plates (numbered 1-56, 14bis & 23 bis). Text in eggplant boards, smooth spine decorated, red morocco title-piece, atlas in plain salmon boards (period bindings). Gay, 2999; Nissen, ZBI, 475; Chadenat, 529. First edition of this "highly regarded work" (Chadenat). Bory de Saint-Vincent (1778-1846) was the zoologist of the scientific expedition commanded by Captain Baudin, composed of two ships, the Géographe and the Naturaliste. "Following the impulse given by the Directory to the teaching and to the scientific researches, is placed under Napoleon, the expedition to the austral lands of the corvettes Geographer and Naturalist, commanded by Nicolas Baudin and on board, many scientists. It stopped twice at the Ile de France. The first time in March-April 1801, to leave the painters Jacques Milbert, Lesueur and Michel Garnier, the zoologist Bory de Saint-Vincent and the botanist Péron" (catalog of the exhibition Île de France - Île Maurice). He left the expedition to Mauritius because of dissensions with Captain Baudin and for health reasons. He was then employed at the staff of this colony and visited for a long time the islands of the neighborhood from where he brought back a great number of specimens of botany, zoology and mineralogy. The 58 maps and plates of the atlas are engraved after the author's drawings. Back in France, Bory de Saint Vincent followed most of Napoleon's campaigns but had to flee until 1820 for having served Napoleon during the Hundred Days. He then devoted his life to scientific works (he participated among others in the scientific expedition of Morée in 1829 which counted George Cuvier, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Désirée Raoul Rochette among the team) and to politics. Inserted is an autograph letter signed by Bory de Saint Vincent, 2 pp. in-8 (204 x 128 mm) written in brown ink and addressed to the Countess Pajol in Paris, dated October 28. It condemns the young woman "to read the introduction to the journey to Greece... The unshakeable will that I have to finish this vast work which is entrusted to me in the least possible time determined me to give up the world as long as I will not have finished". The account of the Morea expedition was published between 1832 and 1836 and marks a major step in the history of archaeology, cartography and natural sciences. A very good copy, complete with 58 plates.