(Cook, Captain James) — Louis Antoine de Bougainville and James Magra | The two earliest works on Tahiti

(Cook, Captain James)— Louis Antoine de Bougainville and James Magra

Voyage autour du Monde, par la Fregate du Roi La Boudeuse, et la Flute l'Etoile, en 1766, 1767, 1768 & 1769 [with:] Supplement au Voyage de M. De Bougainville, ou Journal d'un Voyage Autour du Monde, fait par MM. Banks & Solander, Anglois, en 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771. Traduit de l'Anglois, par M. de Freville. Neuchatel: de l'Imprimerie de la Société typographique, 1772-1773

Three volumes, 8vo (183 x 111 mm). Occasional light spotting. Contemporary French mottled calf, all edges red; joints starting, loss to head of spine of vol. III, two small worm holes to upper and lower cover of vol. I.

A handsome set in contemporary bindings of the two earliest works on Tahiti, and two of the earliest sources on Australia's East Coast.

The first two volumes contain the second edition, revised and augmented, of Bougainville's narrative of his circumnavigation, first published in quarto format in 1771. This edition importantly adds a Discours préliminaire ​​​on discoveries in the Pacific since Magellan, therefore including a description of Cook's First Voyage.

The third volume is the second edition of Magra's account, first published in English, being the second French edition of the earliest published account of Cook's first voyage. It includes a French-Tahitian vocabulary, as well as a letter about Madagascar and a piece on the North West Passage. While it is titled "Supplement," it is complete in itself, however it is clear that the present three volumes have always formed a set.

REFERENCES:

Beddie, 700; Kroepelien, 112/117; O'Reilly-Reitman 290; 364

PROVENANCE:

Contemporary ownership inscription to first free end paper of all volumes, "Ex libris Valesque med." — Donald H. Graham, Jr. (bookplate to pastedowns)