Voyage De Decouvertes a L’Ocean Pacifique du Nord, et Autour Du Monde.

First Edition of this Second French Translation by P.F. Henry of George Vancouver (1758-1798) voyage of exploration. Sold with a pair of cast bronze bookends of two seated female figures. Five volumes 8vo, contemporary quarter calf with the spines gilt decorated.

Vancouver’s work was first published in English in 1798, these volumes are French translated edition. 

Vancouver had accompanied Cook on his second and third voyages. He was appointed to explore the North West coast of America and the Pacific. “This narrative is one of the most important accounts of the exploration of the Pacific Northwest and New Zealand, and valuable source information about Tahiti and the Hawaiian Islands in the last decade of the eighteenth century Among the important features of the narrative are the engraved views in Volume II of the Mission of San Carlos and the Presidio of Monterey, probably the first published views of California.” (Streeter). “This voyage became one of the most important ever made in the interests of geographical knowledge” (Hill).