Lot 34: JULES SÉBASTIEN CÉSAR DUMONT D'URVILLE (1790-1842)

Voyage de la corvette l'Astrolabe. Exécuté par Ordre du Roi pendant les années 1826-1827-1828-1829. Paris: Tastu, 1830-1835. 13 vols. bound in 23, 8° (251 x 160mm) and 4° (310 x 238mm), with 5 2° atlases bound in 6 (549 x 361mm and 647 x 490mm), the set comprising:

Histoire du Voyage. 5 vols. in 10, 102 wood or line-engravings and 8 engraved plates of Australian aborigines reduced from Collins's New South Wales. Atlas with engraved vignette title, portrait, list of plates and 247 lithographic plates including 8 maps, one hand-coloured, 6 double-page.
Zoologie par J.R.C. Quoy et P. Gaimard. 4 vols. in 6. Atlas with engraved vignette title, list of plates and 192 lithographic plates.
Botanique par A. Lesson et A. Richard and Faune Entomologique par B.A.D. Boisduval. 2 vols. in 4. Atlas with engraved vignette title, list of plates and 92 lithographic plates.
Philologie par M. d'Urville. 1 vol. in 2
Observations Nautiques, Météorologiques, Hydrographiques et de Physique. Paris: le Ministère de la Marine, 1833. 2 folding tables. Atlas with engraved vignette title, contents leaf and 46 engraved maps, 20 double-page, 3 hand-coloured.

8° text uncut, modern buckram with original printed wrappers pasted on, with all blanks, half-titles, partly unopened. (Occasional spotting.) Accompanying atlases with plates uncut and unbound in modern buckram-backed portfolios with ties, original printed paper labels to each part on upper covers. 4° text and 2° atlas for Observations in modern half calf over marbled boards. Provenance: Hachette & Cie., Bibliotheque Géographique (early inkstamp on atlas title margin).

EXTREMELY RARE AND DESIRABLE COMPLETE SET OF THE FIRST EDITION OF D'URVILLE'S VOYAGE IN THE ASTROLABE all in the original parts excepting the Observations and its atlas, with all plates and maps as listed. This magnificent work records and illustrates the monumental scientific survey of the principal island groups of the Pacific that was carried out by d'Urville and his fellow scientists. Their work was particularly thorough in Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Cook Strait -- where d'Urville discovered French Pass -- Tonga, Fiji and Micronesia. He also confirmed Dillon's claim that the first Astrolabe had been wrecked in the Santa Cruz Islands, thus finally solving the mystery of the disappearance of La Pérouse in 1788. A year after the expedition returned to France, the Ministry of Marine finally approved an official publication to be printed 'on the most splendid scale' and d'Urville laboured another five years compiling journals, reports and over 6,000 drawings and specimens. For the expedition's considerable geographic and scientific discoveries, Dunmore called it 'the most important French expedition since La Pérouse'. The entire work was first issued in parts, in wrappers, and hence this set, apart from the bound Observations text and atlas, is in its original state, the plates uncoloured before binding. Ferguson 1341; Hill 504; Hocken 47-48; Sabin 21210. (29)