LA PEROUSE, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de
Voyage autour du monde, published in accordance with the decree of April 22, 1791, and written by Mr. 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: a title frontispiece and 69 numbered engraved plates (including 35 plates and 34 maps). Text in pink boards, smooth spine with printed title-piece (publisher's binding), atlas in plain boards.
Ferguson, 268; Hill, 972; Forbes, 272; Lada-Mocarski, 52 ;
First edition.
An extremely important report. 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.
He had already visited Chile, Easter Island, the Hawaiian Islands, Alaska, California, Macao, Manila, the China and Japanese seas, the Tonga Islands and finally Botany-Bay in Australia. It is from this port that his last letter was written, dated February 7, 1788: "I will pass at the end of July 1788, between New Guinea and New Holland by another channel than that of the Endeavour, if however there is one. I shall visit, during the month of September and part of October, the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the whole western coast of New Holland as far as Diemen's Land; but in such a way, however, that it will be possible for me to go north soon enough to arrive at the beginning of December 1788 at the island of France."
After the vain searches carried out under the direction of Bruny d'Entrecasteaux, it was not until 1826 that the English captain Peter Dillon discovered the wrecks of La Boussole and L'Astrolabe in the middle of the reefs surrounding the island of Vanikoro, in the Santa Cruz archipelago.
The account of his voyage was published by L.-A. Milet-Mureau according to the documents that La Pérouse had had the foresight to bring to France, in particular through the intermediary of Barthélémy de Lesseps, who had disembarked in Kamchatka.
The atlas contains a title-frontispiece by Moreau le Jeune and 69 plates, that is to say 34 maps and 35 figures: the latter, engraved after drawings by La Martinière, Prevost and Duché de Vancy, represent scenes of manners, native types, birds, insects and shells; the maps, often double-page, specify the itinerary of the voyage and give the profile of the explored coasts.
A good copy with the text in full margins and containing the portrait of La Pérouse; atlas complete with the engraved title and its 69 plates.
