Lot 747: DUFLOT DE MOFRAS, EUGENE

DUFLOT DE MOFRAS, EUGENE Exploration du territoire de l'Orégon, des Californies et de la Mer Vermeille, exécutée pendant les années 1840, 1841 et 1842. Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1844 3 vols. in 5, comprising 2 8vo text vols. in 4 (9 3/4 x 6 1/2 in., uncut ) and a folio atlas (21 1/8 x 13 1/2 in.; 536 x 349 mm). Text volumes with 2 half-titles, 2 title-pages, 2 engraved frontispieces and 6 other plates, all after Charles Ransonnette; some scattered light foxing. Publisher's printed teal boards; some rubbing, spines darkened and with some chipping. Atlas volume with half-title, title-page, contents leaf, 22 maps on 13 leaves (one colored in outline), 4 full-page plates, folding map at end (colored in outline); moderate to light foxing throughout, small tear to fold of folding map. Publisher's printed teal boards; rubbed, soiled, later cloth spine.

Cowan, p. 186; Howes D542; Graff 1169; Lada-Mocarski 120; Sabin 21144; Zamarano 80 30

First edition. The Streeter copy of an early illustrated work on the Pacific Coast, originally issued in parts. The work includes a fine early view of San Luis Rey Mission and a map of San Diego.

Eugène Duflot de Mofras (1810–1884), was attaché to the French embassy at Mexico City and spent about five months in Monterrey in 1841. His work contains little personal narrative; "he aimed to give a complete description of the country .... He met Lieutenant Wilkes and Sir George Simpson. Each seemed to feel out the others as to the future policy of their countries towards California. An extensive bibliography is printed in the second volume, including a reference to a manuscript in his hands of Boscana's Historia de los Indios de California" (Zamarano Eighty). The work represents an admirable supplement to Humboldt's 1811 account of the same region. The maps are of great beauty. Besides the large folding map of the coast from Alaska to Mexico (apparently number 1 of the maps, but bound at the end of the atlas), the atlas includes a map of the Pacific Ocean north of the equatoras well as important early maps of key locations on the California coast, including San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterery, and San Francisco. Mexican sites such as Acapulco and northern locations such as the Columbia River and the Russian settlement of Archangel are also included.