Lot 124: Champlain, Samuel de

Champlain, Samuel de
Les Voyages de la Nouvelle France Occidentale, dicte Canada, faits par le SR de Champlain & depuis l'an 1603. iusques en l'an 1629 & a Monseigneur le Cardinal Duc de Richelieu. Paris: Chez Pierre Le-Mur, 1632
4to (8 3/4 x 6 3/4 in.; 222 x 171 mm). COLLATION: A4 (prelims); A-Z, Aa-PP4 QQ2 (part I); A-Z, Aa-Qq4 (part II, Qq4 blank); A4 (map index); A-G4 (Traitte de la Marine, G4 blank); A-B4 C2 (Doctrine Chrestienne); B4 (Table of contents for parts I and II): 360 leaves in all, complete, including blanks; part I, pp. 27-30 (D2.3) a cancel half-sheet, as in most copies. DOUBLE-SHEET ENGRAVED MAP; 6 in-text engravings (pt. I, pp. 245, 259, 265, 291, 299, 304); in-text engraved map (Traitte, p. 23); in-text woodcut (Traitte, p. 52). Small rust hole in margin of title-leaf, a rust stain in part II, Q4; scattered slight spotting, browning, and ink show-through, intrinsic to the paper quality; the double-sheet map with 3 clean fold-separations, the left latitude scale trimmed with loss of some figures, minor loss and mis-register where the two sheets are joined; overall, a fine copy. Contemporary vellum.
THE FINAL COLLECTED EDITION of Champlain's voyages, "Perhaps the most important of the old editions" of Champlain (Church). It draws into connected narrative all nine of Champlain's voyages as well as other French voyages. Part I (308 pages) is essentially a reprint of the 1619 Voyages; part II (310 pages), covering the history of Canada 1620-1631 including Champlain's ninth voyage, is entirely new. This copy is in the most complete state, including Champlain's important Traitte de la Marine (54 pages), and the Jesuit Doctrine Chrestienne and catechism in parallel columns, Alqonquin (langue des Montagnars de Canada) and French (20 pages). This last is not present in all copies.
The title-page of the 1632 Voyages is known in three different imprint states, each naming a different Paris bookseller, Claude Collet, Pierre Le-Mur, and Lousi Sevestre. A considerable number of setting variants have been noted by Church, the Bell catalogue, and elsewhere; these have still not been bibliographically analyzed, but it is clear that the majority of them are in-press correction states, varying from copy to copy regardless of imprint, according to how sheets were randomly gathered. In this copy, as in most, pp. 27-30, the half-sheet D2.3, is in a cancel setting. In the uncancelled setting, Champlain had made an overly rude remark concerning the ignorance of royal councillors in matters concerning navigation, which was suppressed in the cancel.
The 1632 engraved map has not been closely studied as a physical production. In this copy and all reproductions we have seen, the two sheets comprising the map are partially trimmed along the line where they join, producing slightly variant losses in each impression. In the present copy, the plate of the right-hand sheet appears to be slightly taller than that of the left-hand sheet, the vertical platemarks measuring 523 mm and 511 mm respectively. (According to European Americana, the map issued by LeMur and Sevestre is "larger" than that of the Collet issue).
References: Bell Jesuit Relations pp. 239-47; Boucher 34; Church 420 (variant imprint); European Americana 632/21 (cf. 20, 22); Gagnon 766; Harrisse Nouvelle France 51; Pilling Algonquian pp. 80-81; Sabin 11839n; Schwartz & Ehrenberg p. 89, pl. 46; Streeter sale 6:3631
Provenance: Frank T. Siebert (Sotheby's New York, 21 May, 1999, lot 7)