Nouveau Voyage Autour Du Monde Ou L'on Decrit En Particulier L'Istme De L'Amerique, Plusiers Cotes & Isles Des Indes Occidentales, Les Isles Du Cap Verd, Le Passage Par La Terre Del Fuego, Les Cotes Meridionales De Chili, Du Perou, & Du Mexique.

A very attractive set, 5 volumes, 62 engraved plates and 15 maps, mostly folding, 12mo, Contemporary Calf Gilt, elaborately gilt spines, morocco labels, with 3 engraved frontispieces,Rouen, Jean Baptiste Machuel, 1723.

Second printing of the French translation of William Dampier’s famous work ‘ A New Voyage Round the World’, 1697.

‘William Dampier combined a swashbuckling life of adventure with pioneering scientific achievements. In 1676, he started his career as a buccaneer preying on ships on the Spanish Main and struggling through the impenetrable jungle of the Isthmus of Panama in search of gold. He could easily have ended up on the gallows. Poor and obscure yet determined to sail the world to make his fortune, he was to become the first person to circumnavigate the globe three times. Among his many extraordinary achievements, Dampier mapped the winds and the currents of the world’s oceans for the first time. He inspired Darwin one hundred and fifty years later with his notes on the wildlife of the Galapagos islands and elsewhere. His portrait in London’s National Portrait Gallery shows a lean, strong-featured man with a thoughtful expression, brown shoulder-length hair and a plain coat, holding a book in his hand. He is styled ‘Pirate and Hydrographer’ but even that tells only part of his story. He was a pioneering navigator, naturalist, travel writer and explorer, as well as hydrographer who was, indeed, quite happy to seek his fortune as a pirate.’ Preston.