Voyage autour du monde, par la frégate du roi La Boudeuse, et la Flûte Étoilée; en 1766, 1767, 1768 & 1769.

4to: [8]-417-[3] pp.; 23 maps.

Contemp. half sheep, spr. paper on boards, gilt-orn. flat spine, red spr. edges (sl. rubbed).

First edition of the narrative of the first French circumnavigation with professional naturalists and geographers aboard (including a woman, Jeanne Baret, who joined the expedition disguised as a man and was enlisted as assistant to the naturalist Philibert Commerson). Ill. (complete) with 20 maps (most fold.) and 3 plates representing local crafts and boats. The largest map represents "Dévelopement de la route des vaisseaux du roy [...] autour du monde" from Nantes to Saint-Malo passing South America, the Falklands Islands, the Straits of Magellan, arriving in the Pacific Ocean where he visited Tahiti and the Philippines before returning via the Cape of Good Hope. The book describes the geography, biology and anthropology of Argentina (then a Spanish colony), Patagonia, Tahiti and Indonesia (then a Dutch colony). From p. 389, a dictionary of the Tahitian language. The book had a great influence on some French philosophers of the Enlightenment such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Denis Diderot.
Ref. Sabin 6864. - Chadenat 25. - Cox I:55.