DILLON, Peter

Voyage aux îles de la mer du Sud, en 1827 et 1828, et la relation de la découverte du sort de La Pérouse. Paris, chez Pillet aîné, 1830. 2 volumes in-8 (205 x 128 mm) of 2 ff.n.ch., LX, 294 pp., 1 f.n.ch., folding frontispiece for volume I; 2 ff.n.ch., 361 pp., 1 f.n.ch., 3 plates (frontispiece and one folding map, one single plate) for volume II. Black half-chagrin, spine ribbed, spotted edges (19th century binding). Hill, 481; Howgego, D56. First edition of the French translation of this work recounting the voyage of an Irish boater in the South Sea. This one is particularly important since it contains the account of the discovery of the place where La Pérouse and his companions were shipwrecked in 1788. It is decorated with 4 plates (3 folding) lithographed in black by Engelmann, including the two frontispieces and the folding map showing the island of Mannicolo (Vanikoro), the single plate shows the model of a dugout canoe. Peter Dillon was in command of the schooner St. Patrick on the Valparaiso-Pondicherry voyage, when in 1826-1827, during a stopover on the island of Tikopia, he met the natives and noticed an old silver sword guard. He was told that the Tikopians had brought back some European objects from an island located two or three days by pirogue from theirs, Vanikoro, and he quickly understood that they were the remains of the La Pérouse expedition. A very good copy, complete with its 4 required plates. Copy with the figure of Louis Philippe d'Orléans